


Omega Flour

by Apikale



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, High School, Mild Language, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, monsters & humans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:56:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 22,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9215609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apikale/pseuds/Apikale
Summary: Toriel is the principal at Ebottville Secondary School, most of your favorite monsters are staff, and Undyne is still a gym/health teacher.  Here is an account of a week-long assignment that Undyne gives the ENTIRE school.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For best results, listen to "Spear of Justice."

Undyne loved her job.

She loved her kids.

She tolerated their parents.

Usually.

But not tonight.

Not when it came time to deal with Helen Richardson, stay-at-home mother of three, diligent attendee of every PTA meeting, soccer game, and bake sale. This was the determined soul who occupied the chair across from Undyne’s desk, legs crossed primly as though the gym teacher’s office didn’t reek of mildew, ugly seventies carpet, and the aromas wafting over from the adjacent locker rooms. She even wore a blazer and a pencil skirt for the occasion.

Would it have killed her to wait for parent-teacher night?

If it had killed her, would one of the monsters who played varsity sports be justified in absorbing her soul to gain its power?

Would that be cheating?

Would anyone even want to eat a soul that probably tasted like kale and gluten-free brownies?

“Thank you for accepting this conference,” Helen greeted Undyne, as though the latter had really had a choice. “I wish to discuss potential amendments to the proposed syllabus. Specifically, there are articles in the curriculum for this quarter that I believe to be inappropriate for school.”

“Such as?”

“Well, an upcoming unit for seventh-grade physical education is listed as ‘advanced spear-throwing’.”

“That’s a typo. I’ll be sure to fix it. Advanced spear-throwing is for eighth grade. Is that all? You’re free to go.” Undyne stood up hopefully, but Helen shook her head and kept her Zumba-enhanced butt firmly planted in her seat. Undyne sighed and sat down again.

“There is another unit I find furthermore objectionable, and I think I speak for many concerned parents when I express my desire to have it removed.”

Undyne frowned, genuinely puzzled. “You would be the first mother I’ve seen who was offended by dodge-ball.”

“As disturbed as I am that Jayden and his classmates were told to… to… um, you know. ’Get dunked on,'” Helen whispered, “I understand that it was your substitute instructor and not you who uttered such vulgarities, and I trust that the school has disciplined him appropriately.”

“Well, that’s the only other gym unit for this quarter. It takes a long time to master spear-throwing. Why, until Asgore started training me—”

“You are also the health teacher, are you not?” Helen interrupted.

“On Fridays, yes. I’m sorry if HP isn’t especially relevant to your child, but half of the student body at Ebottville Secondary School are monsters, and that’s important stuff for them to know. Anyway, we just finished that unit last week. Can’t un-ring that bell.”

“Ms. Undyne, I’d like to propose a different textbook to cover 'sexuality and reproduction’.”

“Sorry, but our options are limited. There aren’t too many books that apply to both humans and monsters.” Undyne did her best to refrain from rolling her eye.

“Upon previewing your textbook, I came to the realization that it endorses same-sex relations as acceptable and presents gender as a social construct instead of a biological constant. I’d rather not have my son exposed to that kind of political agenda. It gives children deviant ideas, and frankly I would be surprised that Principal Toriel allowed it, were it not for the fact that her son is already confused.”

“Tori doesn’t have a son. At least not anymore. Best not to mention it.”

“So Frisk is a girl?”

“Frisk is Frisk. They aren’t a boy or a girl.”

“Every child is either a boy or a girl. There is no in-between, despite what television is doing these days. I expect it all comes from teaching that homosexuality is normal, and if you do not wish to foster further confusion amongst the student body, I ask that you would save the propaganda for a political rally and not teach it as fact in the classroom where it could lead the students astray.”

Undyne could feel the blood rush through her cheeks and into her gills. “And even if a schoolbook could change somebody’s sexual orientation, what’s so bad about homosexuality? Aside from religious rules, I mean.”

“It’s unnatural.”

Unnatural?

Unnatural?

“Unnatural?!?!?”

Undyne couldn’t hold it in any longer. Helen scooted her chair backwards as the fish monster jumped up onto the desk, teeth bared, legs posed as though ready to sprint.

“You humans. You’re all slaves to what you think is natural, but your ideals are so arbitrary and confined. Monogamy is natural. No, wait, polygamy is natural, but only for men. Every baby is either a boy or a girl, before they can even talk. Boys who like other boys and girls who like other girls and boys and girls who only want to be friends with each other don’t exist. You think you’re progressive if you allow your child to date someone whose skin is a different color. Literally the only difference is a freaking—” Helen blushed at Undyne’s diction. “–color.”

Undyne hopped off the desk and towered over Helen, who would have pushed herself backwards even farther if it weren’t for the wall behind her.

“Well guess what, Helen? Things are a bit different with monsterkind. You see, we don’t get hung up on size, or color, or gender, or lack thereof. Sure, lots of monsters hook up with their own kind 'cuz it’s more convenient that way, but if a skeleton falls for a ghost, or a Vulkin wants to be with a Woshua, or a fish finds a lizard who’s totally smart and sexy and passionate and amazingly good in the sack, you know what we say?” Helen was sweating profusely as Undyne leaned in. “We don’t say a damn thing, because it’s nobody’s damn business.”

Undyne straightened up and took a step backwards. She folded her arms in front of her.

“And you know what else? It is 'natural.’ It’s totally natural. My girlfriend—yes, girlfriend—who is a scientist, explained to me how theoretically any monster gamete is compatible with any other monster gamete, although there might be complications in gestation.” Undyne shivered in delight at getting to sound smart. “Which I will teach my students, some of whom are hybrid monsters themselves, proof that we don’t have to be all matchy-matchy when we want to get it on! Any more questions?”

Helen shook her head.

Undyne smiled a smile to make Muffet proud. “Good. Now, there’s an opt-out form for individual students if you’d like to apply. But I don’t think you’ll be needing it, will you?”

Helen shook her head. Wobbling in her heels, she braced herself against the door-frame as she let herself out.

Undyne punched the air in victory. She crammed all her papers haphazardly into her tote bag, eager to get home to where Alphys would be waiting for her.


	2. Day 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The grand unveiling.

Frisk gestured to the seat next to them as their bright yellow friend scurried into the classroom. Arms or no arms, Monster Kid (as they had somehow become nicknamed despite the hundreds of other monster children in attendance at Ebottville Secondary) managed to fling themself into the reserved chair just in time for the bell to ring.

“Yo! Thanks for saving me a spot up front! I hate it when some big kid sits in front of me and I can’t see Undyne. I heard we’re supposed to start some big project today!”

Frisk nodded.

“Did Principal Toriel tell you what it was? Do we get to go on a field trip? Or dissect something? Ew, probably not, that’d be gross.”

Frisk shook their head and opened a green folder. They pulled out a syllabus and pointed at the unit title. Monster Kid’s eyes widened even more than usual.

“Do… do you think we’ll look at pictures of… you know…” Monster Kid glanced at the doorway at the front of the room cautiously. “Naked people?”

Frisk shrugged.

Just then the door flung wide open, exacerbating the crack that had started chipping away at the cinder-block wall ever since a certain fish had accepted a certain job offer. In walked Undyne, burly arms filled with an enormous plastic bin.

“All right, listen up, brats!” They listened up. “You’re all here because your parents were too lazy to sign your opt-out forms. Or because someone convinced them otherwise.”

Jayden Richardson slumped down in his seat.

“Actually, that’s a lie. You’re all here because your parents had sex!” A wave of giggles and blushes swept across the seventh-graders’ faces. “Human or monster, they got it on in a fiery sweeping of pleasure fueled by hormones, pheromones, magic, and determination! Except you, Moldsmal, I guess,” she amended. “Don’t you guys broadcast spawn or something? Ah well. Where was I? Oh yes, fiery sweeping of pleasure—”

“That’s enough, Undyne.” Principal Toriel strode into the room, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “I think it advisable that I should… monitor this lesson. Please proceed to explain to the students what it is you expect of them.”

“All right, all right. We will be getting into sexuality in this unit, I promise. But first rule of sex, first rule of life, is that actions have consequences. And since the responsibility of bringing a new life into this world is a frequent consequence, the school board thinks you should have a little sample of what that tastes like.”

Toriel smiled in spite of herself. “I think it tastes like flour!”

Undyne groaned. “Thanks, Tori, you’ve ruined my grand unveiling. But yes. I present to you… your flour children!”

“Sounds groovy!”

“Tori!”

“Sorry, sorry… carry on.”

Undyne pulled the lid off of the plastic bin she had brought in with her. Inside there were, indeed, a couple dozen sacks of flour.

“I see your desks are already grouped into pairs. I hope you like your partner, ‘cuz… you’ll be raising a kid together! From now until our class reconvenes next week, this is your baby. Cherish your baby. You will give it the attention due a human or monster infant. Feed it, clothe it, rock it to sleep, polish its scales, change its diapers. And above all, cherish!”

A human child near the back of the room blurted out, “But how will you know we’re doing all that? You can’t keep track of what we’re doing all the time.”

Undyne grinned, the sharp points of her teeth striking fear into the hearts of her students as usual. “That’s where the innovation of the brilliant Dr. Alphys comes in. You see, these are no ordinary flour sacks. Observe.”

She slapped a metal cuff around the wrist of the student who seemed to be paying the least attention. She dropped one of the sacks onto the student’s desk and pushed a button on a remote control. “Your baby is now activated, and that cuff isn’t coming off until I personally unlock it. I’m the only one who knows the password! Now, right now your baby is sitting on your desk, and you’re cherishing it as you should. But what happens if you stop cherishing?”

She picked up the sack and walked five, ten, fifteen feet away. At first nothing happened, but right around when she hit the twenty-foot mark, the class was treated to a horrid wailing:

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeaaaahhhEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeahhhhEEEEEEE!!!”

“Abandon it, it cries!” Undyne yelled over the screeching. She stepped back into range. “Fail to feed it, it cries. Keep it up too late at night, it cries. You get the picture. These bracelets are synced with your flour baby. You or your partner must be cherishing it at all times. Get it? Got it? Good. Now the rest of you, come get yours!”

The class lined up in pairs as instructed. The child who had been issued the first sack grumbled, “It doesn’t even sound like a real baby.”

“Alphys analyzed the cries of human babies and the young of all monster subspecies and programmed the cry to sound like the mean.”

“It seemed the most fair to our student body. That’s also why we chose a flour sack instead of a more defined form,” Toriel added. “So the students could project an image onto their child that resembles themselves.”

“Hang on a second, Tori,” Undyne objected. “This isn’t just for the students…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Undyne refers to Toriel as "Tori" at times. She picked that up from Asgore.


	3. It's Bad to Be Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toriel regretfully relents.

“Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely yes. Weren’t you paying attention at the last PTA meeting?” After class, Undyne had followed Toriel straight to the principal’s office and perched obnoxiously on the desk, dangling her legs over the side and swinging them impatiently. Toriel yanked a folder out from under the fish and placed about two sheets’ worth of notes inside before returning it to a shelf behind her.

“We agreed to be more hands-on with projects, that is all.”

“No, we agreed that the teachers would personally participate in any major projects they assign, to serve as a positive example.”

“Fine then. You may have a flour sack and you may bear its incessant noise. But leave the rest of us out of it.”

“Other teachers besides the physics teacher built bottle rockets. And the history teacher was far from the only one to dress in period costume for Presidents Day.”

“Because those were fun activities, Miss Undyne! They wanted to participate! Good luck accruing participants for this one.”

“Au contrair, Tori! I’ve found plenty already!”

“That’s great, you can stop badgering me.”

But Undyne wasn’t finished. “As a matter of fact, thus far the entire staff body is signed up except for you.”

“Then go strap a ticking time bomb to everyone else and let me do my work.”

“And what kind of message would that send?” Undyne jumped down and gestured toward the wall of portraits of former principals of Ebottville Secondary. “Toriel Dreemurr—”

“My name isn’t Dreemurr and hasn’t been for a long time.”

“Toriel Toriel, first monster principal at any human school in many centuries, doesn’t want to participate in a school-sponsored event meant to spread awareness to a salient human social issue! The public is going to think monsterkind just doesn’t care! Tori, our whole image as a race is at stake here.”

Toriel exhaled. “You’re blowing this far out of proportion. Our race is not going to be subject to a second war as a result of one principal liking her peace and quiet. But if it will make you shut up, fine, place yet another burden on an administrator who is already—”

The cuff was on Toriel’s wrist in a flash, and the flour sack was on her desk.

“You might want to get in touch with your assigned partner,” Undyne suggested. “You’ll only be half as busy.”

“And to whom do I owe the pleasure?” Toriel inquired as she unwrapped a piece of butterscotch candy. She needed something sweet in her mouth. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if she had a partner. Perhaps whoever it was would take full responsibility and she wouldn’t have to see the damn… darn thing all week.

Undyne shrugged. “Beats me. I’m not the one pairing everyone off.”

“Then who—?”

Just then, the glass window in the principal’s office fell with a loud crash! and there lay a lanky skeleton in a track suit in the center of the office.

“Speak of the devil!” Undyne exclaimed. “But what’s with the smashing? That’s usually my department.”

“Sorry for the… eh… unconventional entrance there.” Papyrus stood up and brushed himself off.

“I’ll say! Usually you nail the landing! Ah well. You’ve got the assignments laid out, right?”

“I do indeed! I set a random generator to randomly select a random pattern of random pairings! Randomly based on mutual compatibility and personality.”

Toriel felt the weight of the ruins sink into her gut. “Papyrus… you do know what ‘random’ means, don’t you?”

“Of course! And what will emerge is indeed a pattern that has never been seen before! Mostly… because this is a new assignment and no pattern has been seen before. But even so, the great Papyrus will not let you down! Nye he he he he!” He produced a list from under his ball-cap. “Coach Undyne, you lucky dog, will be paired with the brilliant Dr. Alphys! Just as you requested! And you, Principal Toriel, are to team up with… Asgore Dreemurr!”

Toriel choked on her butterscotch candy. “I… what?? Papyrus, I… he… he doesn’t even work here!”

“What are you talking about? I saw him on school grounds just last week! And the week before that, and the week before that…”

“Just to manage the landscaping. Once a week is about as often as I trust him around so many humans at once!”

“Welp, if the school pays him to trim the hedges, he’s a school employee. Bam. Partners. No backsies!” Undyne’s tone betrayed an edge of smugness, and Toriel would have loved to strangle the fish then and there.

“You’re dismissed,” she told the teachers icily.

“And… I’m sorry about crashing through the window, Principal Toriel. I know seeing someone like the Great Papyrus having injured himself must have been quite disturbing! But fear not! I am off… to possibly endure more severe crashes over the course of the rest of the day.” He skipped out.

“Whose idea was it again to make him the driver’s ed teacher?” Toriel rubbed her temples and stared at the ceiling.

“He turned out to be a good driver… who knew? And his HP is high enough to endure most of what the students can dish out.” Undyne smiled and followed him out.

Toriel didn’t know how long she spent sifting idly through her papers before there was a knock at her door.

“Go away, Undyne,” she groaned. But she already knew it wasn’t the fish.

“Tori? My dear?” a deep, gentle voice called through the doorway. “I got a text from Papyrus… I’m supposed to meet with you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify: Papyrus is indeed a perfectly safe driver. I think Snowdrake was behind the wheel when Papy was ejected through the window.


	4. Nomenclature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frisk and the other monsters ditch Jerry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that rabbit kid from Snowdin's name, again?

While the appearance of a single flour sack for every two students ought to have been negligible, the cafeteria felt a great deal more crowded come lunchtime, most likely due to the surplus noise that erupted:

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeaaaahhhEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeahhhhEEEEEEE!!!”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, I just left to go to the bathroom!”

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeaaaahhhEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeahhhhEEEEEEE!!!”

“For the last time, you can’t just throw it your pizza crust! You have to use the formula Coach Undyne gave us!”

“How the hell does it know what we’re feeding it?”

“How the hell is it eating?”

“It’s a freaking flour sack!”

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeaaaahhhEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeahhhhEEEEEEE!!!”

“Yo! Frisk!”

Monster Kid ran up to their human friend, flour sack strapped onto their front in a baby sling. Frisk unstrapped their project, scooping it into their arms. They pulled their lunch money out of their pocket and handed it to Monster Kid.

“You want to watch our baby while I go buy us lunch?”

Frisk smiled.

“Swell! I think they’re serving cheeseburger pizza today. The human kids say the food’s way better since Grillby and Muffet took over. I heard they’re partners on this project. You think there’s somethin’ goin’ on there?”

Frisk blinked.

“Yeah, I don’t know either. But take good care of Papyrus while I’m in line! You think that’s a good name? Papyrus?”

Frisk stuck two fingers in their mouth and leaned forward, then grinned cheekily.

“Fine then! You try to think of something better by the time I get back! It’s gotta have a name!” Monster Kid queued up while Frisk scurried to find them seats.

They found spots at a table that was empty except for one lapine figure that was busily trying to coax carrots into his flour sack. “Come on, Snowshoe… Mom, I mean, Grandma says they’re good for your HP!” They saw Frisk and waved.

Frisk mounted the bench across from their rabbit friend and looked up and down. They tilted their head inquisitively.

“My partner?” the rabbit asked. “He's… he’s not around! Look, I was late to class, he was all that was left, I’d really rather not—”

“THERE you are! Guys, I can’t believe Undyne’s making us do this. It’s so stupid. Does anyone care?” A gelatinous form plopped down next to the rabbit, spilling over both sides of the bench. “Hey, do you mind taking the kid this weekend? I don’t feel good, and Family Guy’s on tonight.”

He coughed, but didn’t take his hands off his Lunchables. The rabbit yanked Snowshoe away from the trajectory of saliva and shook his head.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Do you think your mom can give me a ride home? I hate the bus.”

Frisk sighed in pity. They pointed at something over their adversary’s shoulder. He turned, and Frisk and the rabbit scurried away.

“Th-thank… you…” the rabbit panted once they had retreated to safety under the stage. “I… I think I see why Mom never minded being single! I wish I could trade partners, not that anyone would trade with me anyway.”

Frisk patted him on the head.

“I hope the teachers like the partners they got. I bet Coach Undyne would let them trade if they asked.”

Frisk shook their head, skeptical.

Monster Kid found them. “Yo, why’re y'all down here? Ah well… I forgot to ask, did you want milk or spider cider? I got one of each ‘cuz I couldn’t decide anyway.”

Frisk took the cider, a piece of pizza, and some fries. They peeled open a ketchup packet.

“Anyway, I’ve been thinking some more about names, and I had this great-aunt Geraldine, she went by Jerry…”

With speed that could impress even the rabbit, Frisk used the contents of the condiment packet to write in huge letters,

NO.


	5. Bottom of the Barrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last of the sacks are distributed. They're one short. Fortunately, there's a substitute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus and Undyne technically share an office, but he's not there as often as she is so he thinks of it as hers.

In Undyne’s office, Papyrus scrolled down the list of names, crossing them out two by two.

“Asgore and Toriel… Alphys and Undyne… Miss Johnson and Mr. Smith… Napstablook and Mettaton… Mr. Todd and Mr. Stone… Temmie and Temmie… what’s-her-face and that creepy janitor… Grillby and Muffet… well, that leaves just two more names, and wowie,  just one flour sack left!  But who could those two names be?”

He flipped through the pages, but before he found the names, there was a knock at the door.

“Be gone!  The Great Papyrus has been tasked with the administration of very important administrative tasks!”

“Like, you have to let us in!”

“Undyne said so!”

“She was like, pissed at first ‘cuz we blew off her class today.”

“Yeah, she was gonna fail us!”

“But like, we had other stuff to do!”

“Important stuff!”

Relenting, Papyrus opened the door to find Bratty and Catty, decked out in cheerleading uniforms and pompoms.

“So why should I let you in, then?”

“We have to get our flour sack project thingy!”  Catty tossed one of her pompoms under her armpit, freeing up her other hand.

“'Cuz Alphys is totally cool and changed Undyne’s mind for us.”

“Well, maybe not totally cool.”

“Like we had to bribe her first.”

“With anime we found at the dump today.”

“Catty, don’t say that!  We weren’t at the dump today!”

They stared at each other and released their signature giggle.

“JK, JK, yeah we were.”

“Doing important stuff like we said!”

“So like, can we have the sack so we can go back to practice?”

Papyrus passed the single remaining flour baby to Catty and activated the sensors.  She grinned, tossed it up in the air once, and caught it.

“Catty!  If that breaks, we flunk!  Unless we find, like, a buttload more anime.”

“I’m not gonna hurt him!  See?  Burgerpants Jr. is just fine.”

Bratty turned greener than usual.  “Girl, you have got to get some standards!  You can’t call your flour baby Burgerpants!”

Papyrus was startled to hear Sans’ voice pipe up from behind him, “Would Burgerdiaper be more appropriate?”

“Sans!  How did you even get in here?  Why are you here?”

Bratty and Catty scampered away.

“I’m here for the same reason they were, Pap.  To collect the assignment.”

Papyrus frowned, then brightened.  “Well, I suppose it’s good to see you learning some responsibility for once!  Carry on!”

“Sweet, so where’s the kid?”

“Right here in–”  Papyrus checked the bin again, then groaned. “I… believe I just gave away the last one.”

“Well, guess that makes my job easy.”

“No!  Undyne assured me there would be enough to go around!  Your partner must have picked it up already.”

“Sorry man, I don’t even know who my partner is.”

“Sans!  You should be taking this project seriously!”

“So who’s your partner?”

“That’s easy!  I… don’t quite remember off the top of my head. But that’s okay, because I have the list!  And… wait a minute…” Horror rushed through his empty ribcage.  “If… if I don’t have a partner… and you don’t have a partner… and we’re the only ones left… but this cannot be!  Nooooooo!  My foolproof algorithm proved foolish!  It paired me with a fool!”

“So we’re co-parenting an invisible child?”

“Our child is not invisible!  Undyne would’ve said something if we were one short!”

“Oh yeah… speaking of Undyne, she told me to give you this note.”  Sans rummaged around in the pocket of his hoodie until he found a crumpled piece of notebook paper.  He tossed it to his brother.  “Welp, I’ll see ya later.  Maybe I’ll even see the baby later, if it’s real.”

“Sans, you get back here this instant!  Sans!”

But he was already gone.

Papyrus uncrumpled the paper, questioning Undyne’s judgment in whom she chose to deliver her messages.

_Papyrus—looks like we’re one short after all.  Oops.  Luckily I found a stand-in at the last minute.  It’s in the cupboard above all the wiffle balls._

Papyrus reached up to open the cabinet, cursing his luck as he did so.  “This is the worst possible ending!”

But naturally, he was to stand corrected.  A saccharine, yet sinister, grin greeted him from inside the cupboard.

“Howdy! I’m Flowey!  Flowey… the flour sack!”


	6. The Ghost Next Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blooky has one set of parenting ideals. And Mettaton has a very different one.

“Shhhh, little one.  We’re almost home.”  Napstablook kissed their flour sack as they floated up the walk to their half of the duplex—house 17A.  “Mettaton’s busy tonight, but… but we could have a nice evening.  I’ll play some music and we’ll have ghost sandwiches and we’ll lie on the floor and feel like garbage.  And tomorrow, maybe I’ll show you the snail farm out back.” Napstablook gave the sack a hug.  “I think I’ll call you Jamie.”

“Snore!  That name hasn’t been relevant since the seventies!”

The street lamps flashed in colors Napstablook was quite sure the city hadn’t installed, and a cloud of glittery smoke rolled out from the door to house 17B.

Mettaton EX emerged, spinning gracefully on a pair of roller skates as he coasted up to Napstablook and bowed deeply.

“I… thought it was a good name because I don’t know if it’s a boy or… or a girl or… something else,” Napstablook explained quietly.  “And… and I thought you wouldn’t be home tonight?  That you had some kind of party to be at?”

“I do indeed, but it’s at my place, and what good is a party without the guest of honor?”  Mettaton pried not-Jamie from Napstablook’s grasp and slid back to 17B.  “Aren’t you coming?” he called over his shoulder.  “You could be a dear and help set up.”

If Napstablook had had legs, they would have been jogging to keep up.  “Set up for what?”

“Why, our child’s gender-reveal party, of course!  They’re all the rage now, and I’ve got just enough space for the twenty-five lucky viewers who’ve been selected for invitations!”

Napstablook followed their cousin into his living-room, which was, indeed, half-decorated with pink and blue streamers and balloons, with matching tablecloths folded up in one corner.

Warily, Napstablook began to unfold a pink tablecloth.  “It doesn’t really have a gender, I just couldn’t decide what to pretend it was.”

“Well I _know_ that, darling, but my comments section has been blowing up with viewers who want to know!  And so I gave it some thought and said to myself, well, why not take a poll and let the audience decide!”  Mettaton pulled out his cell phone and took a selfie, which he promptly uploaded.  “Tonight I’ll read the results and name the baby accordingly!  Noah’s trending right now for boys, I think, and Emma’s the hip name for girls!”

“How late are you going to keep Noah-or-Emma?” Napstablook asked.  “They need their sleep, after all.”

“The party goes until midnight. That’s when the gender will be revealed.  But the polls close at nine.  That leaves enough time to bake a pink or blue cake, as the case may be.”

Napstablook startled at the realization that they weren’t alone in Mettaton’s house, as they noticed a trail of spiders crawling into the kitchen, each carrying a single pink or blue sprinkle on their back.

“That’s pretty late to keep a child up.”

“Honey, they’ll have to get used to it if I’m their dad!  After all, what’s a celebrity without a celebrity baby?  And if the forecast is accurate, tonight’s fiesta should put me at a milestone million viewers!”

“I… I guess that’s pretty great,” Napstablook congratulated Mettaton weakly.

“Blooky, it’s more than ‘pretty great’,” Mettaton insisted.  He slammed his phone shut and plopped down on the couch, throwing his arms across the entire length of the sofa.  “It’s my shot to blow this popsicle stand, once and for all. I mean, coming to the surface has been great for my career, no doubt about it!  I’ve got tons more people to watch my content and throw tomatoes at me.  But there’s so much more competition amongst the video choices up here.  Parrots who whistle 'If You’re Happy and You Know It,’ college kids finding Pokemon that look like kittens, llamas that wear hats and murder people!  I really have to step up my game just to keep up, and tonight’s my chance!  Don’t you see, Blooky?” Mettaton leaned forward.  “Drama class is fun, but I can’t keep corralling tweens who don’t remember their lines forever, and I shouldn’t have to.  You of all people should understand.”

Napstablook nodded.  Mettaton was right.  Even before he was Mettaton, he’d always been the bigger of the two spirits.  The one who was meant for great things.  Things like Broadway, or maybe even Hollywood.  He _should_ be hosting talk shows and winning Oscars.

All the while, Napstablook was meant to mix CDs and feed snails and show twelve-year-olds how to play the recorder.  It wasn’t fair, but it was who they were.

Mettaton’s child deserved better than that.

“Um… speaking of the tweens, I have papers that I should probably grade tonight.  And a lesson plan to work on for Monday.”

Mettaton’s face fell for a quarter of a second, then reassembled into a charismatic grin.  “That’s a bummer, Bl—cousin,” he mock-lamented.  “Think maybe you could swing by for the dance-off at ten, at least?  Frisk’s challenging me to a rematch, and they’re bringing one of their little friends from school.  It’ll be adorable.  The fans are going to eat it up!”

“Um… maybe.  We’ll see,” Napstablook excused themself.

They overheard the guests arrive around seven, a mix of screams and giggles of delight at finally meeting _the_ Mettaton!

At eight, Napstablook microwaved a ghost burrito.

Just before nine, they contemplated getting off the floor and logging onto Mettaton’s fansite to vote in the poll, but decided against it.

They looked at their watch about a quarter after ten and decided it was too late to bother with the dance-off.

They were asleep by eleven.

At midnight, they were awoken by a flurry of pink strobe lights outside and a chorus cheering, “It’s a girl!  It’s a _girl_! IT’S A GIRL!!!”

“Happy birthday… Emma,” Napstablook whispered to an empty room, before drifting off again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think gender-reveal parties are the stupidest, tackiest thing our generation has invented. But Mettaton is trendy.


	7. Lunchtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphys visits Undyne and their flour sack halfway through the school day.

The best part of coaching gym class was having an excuse to yell.

“Faster!”

“Keep those legs moving!”

“Don’t set your flour sack down!”

“Walking briskly is not running!”

“Cherish those flour sacks!”

“Come on, aren’t you humans supposed to be made out of determination?”

“Gerson runs faster than you!”

“Are you cherishing?”

“Cherish harder!”

Undyne also had fun picking on specific slow kids, especially Loox, although Frisk would shoot her dirty looks whenever she did it.  She never could pick on Frisk, the little punk, although Frisk was certainly anything but slow.  Her memories of throwing spears at them could attest to that.  If she were allowed to throw spears at all the students, she had argued, then their physical education scores would be the highest in the state, but of course Toriel had put her foot down.  Sometimes Undyne tried making do with pool noodles, but getting them to stay airborne was nearly impossible.  It was still fun to watch the students tremble every time she began twirling one in her arms.

But all fun things had to come to an end, and as such, the time to dismiss the class to the locker rooms came all too soon.

Undyne plopped into the chair in her office.  The next block was her planning period, and after that, lunch.  That was a good length of time to take a nap, or go for a run with Asgore, or perhaps even dash home to see—

“Alphys!”  Undyne stood up as her girlfriend raised a fist to knock on the open door-frame.  The lizard blushed and held up a brown bag that Undyne initially mistook for their flour sack, until she remembered that today custody had gone to Undyne, and Dokusonmaru (as Alphys had christened their imaginary progeny) was securely strapped to the fish’s back.

“H-h-hi, Un-Undyne,” Dr. Alphys stuttered as she shuffled in. “Y-you f-forgot your l-l-lunch.”

Undyne took the bag and kissed Alphys quickly, before there was any chance of a student having finished showering and changing already and barging in to complain about who-cares-what.  “Didn’t forget. Just couldn’t wait till after school to see you again,” she joked, making Alphys blush even redder, that perfect crimson Undyne loved.

“Th-then I should be glad I d-didn’t n-n-notice until after Miss Jackson h-had already left for the l-l-library.  You m-might be kissing h-her in-in-st-st-stead.”

Undyne made a face, then scooped Alphys into a half-hug, half-headlock.  “That’s the spirit.  You can just break the bad news to Gloria that there may be other fish in the sea, but this fish belongs to this lizard!”

Gloria Jackson was their landlady, from whom they rented a cozy in-law suite above the elderly woman’s garage.  The apartment was small, and they probably could’ve easily afforded a bigger place, but something about this lady in particular had felt familiar and safe in a way the other housing they had seen just didn’t.  Although Alphys and Undyne had never discussed it out loud, they both knew that they both knew that they had put a finger on what it was shortly after Gloria had shown them the suite.  It was when she served them tea and cookies, and they had exchanged pleasantries.  Officially to Ebottville, Gloria was a spinster, who had lost her friend and roommate of many years, Hortensia, some three or four years prior. But in Gloria’s case, the difference between a spinster and a widow was all too transparent.  The warm smiles on the old woman’s face—both as she recounted anecdotes from when Hortensia was alive and as she asked Alphys and Undyne about their past, present, and future together—had told the couple that this could be home.  They had moved in a matter of days later.

Alphys looked down.  “Th-this l-lizard is very l-lucky,” she replied.

“Is the lizard staying for lunch?” Undyne asked hopefully.

Alphys paused.  “I… I didn’t bring anything f-for me,” she admitted, “b-but if y-you’ve got Instant Noodles and a m-microwave, I c-can manage.”

“It’s okay… I packed extra for the baby, and I think I went overboard.  There should be plenty for all three of us.”  Undyne brightened.  “A nice, family meal.”

“Y-yeah… th-that sounds n-n-nice.  I-I’ll have to get back to w-work before too long, though.  I c-c-can take Dokusonmaru; I’ll just be in the lab all afternoon until it’s t-time to come back for MATCH.”  MATCH was an acronym (Undyne could never remember what exactly it stood for, but it had something to do with technology) for the student club Alphys supervised on Mondays after school.  This was actually Alphys' only real tie to Ebottville Secondary School; otherwise she was content to spend her days tinkering in the shop she had set up in the garage, seeing as Gloria didn’t own a car anymore and honestly didn’t mind.

Undyne smiled and nodded in concurrence.  Even though it came with none of the prestige or honor of acting as the Royal Scientist, Alphys’ position enabled her to do what she did best—challenge minds to think in new ways.  Forget programming the flour sack; Alphys truly would make an amazing mother to a flesh-and-blood child, because the child’s curiosity would always be fed and inspired.  The truth of the matter was, going back to their first meeting ever, it never would have occurred to Undyne to ask where the garbage went or what lay on the other side of the abyss if Alphys hadn’t asked the question.  But Alphys did ask the question, and so Undyne did too, and now here they were.

Wonderful things unfolded when Alphys put her mind to it, and if even one student could grow mentally the way Undyne had ever since Alphys stumbled into her life, then so much hope lay in store for that student.

Hope that she liked to think Alphys would someday taste herself.

Of course, there was still a great side of Alphys that no student could ever hope to know.

“U-Undyne?  Are you okay?”

Voyeurs be damned, Undyne threw her arms around Alphys again and sank into the embrace of her kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monsters Assisting Technologically Challenged Humans, in case you were wondering.


	8. Spaghetti-Nos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus gives Flowey-the-Flour-Sack a cooking lesson.

“I told you, I’m photosynthetic, I don’t _need_ to eat!” Flowey growled as Papyrus carried his pot down the stairs to the kitchen.

“Well, then that’s good!  Because my cooking is… still not quite edible.  But I’m learning!”

Flowey groaned.  “Then why do you insist on dragging me down here?”

“Because you haven’t come out of your room all weekend and as your father I need to teach you some life skills.  And cooking is a life skill.  We’ll start simple, with spaghetti!  You can just watch if you like, and there’s a book of puzzles in this drawer in case you get bored.”

“One, there’s a reason I stayed in my room.  Two, you are not As- I mean, my father!  Three, cooking is not a life skill when you’re stuck as a flower.  And four, I hate spaghetti and I hate stupid puzzles!”

But Papyrus was already opening cupboards and pulling out pans and cutlery.  “I won’t let Sans’ neglect turn you wayward.  Er, more wayward.”

“More wayward than what?  Resetting so I could watch the human die over and over?  Eating every soul in the underground?”

“Well, we certainly can’t have you getting more wayward than that, can we?  Now, pass me the noodles.”

“Pass _me_ the herbicide.”

“Now, why would the Great Papyrus do such a thing to a friend?”

Flowey froze as Papyrus reached past him to pick up the spaghetti noodles himself.  Then the skeleton poured them into the pot and set it to boil.

He plugged his iPod into the speaker jack and began humming and dancing to the music, bracing himself for the flower to make some snarky comment.  But it never came, and finally, he turned back to the flower to check that his assignment had not spontaneously expired.  It would, after all, place a certain tension between him and Undyne, not to mention Frisk, who had taken an inexplicable shine to Flowey ever since whatever-exactly-it-was that had happened at the barrier.

Fortunately, Flowey was living and breathing, albeit dazed.

“How foolish of me!  I neglected to give you a pencil for your puzzles!”

“You idiot!  I don’t need a freaking pencil!  I don’t even have the book open!”

“Then why so quiet, if not in concentration?”

“I’m figuring out just what kind of idiot you even are!  You seem pretty confused about the way things work!”  Flowey jumped, lifting his pot about an inch off of the counter-top.  “Why did you call me a ‘friend’?”  He lifted a viney arm to his face, covering his mouth with a leaf.

“Well… because you are, of course.”

“No, I’m your enemy!  Your _terrifying_ enemy!  With thorns and fangs and poison who almost destroyed the world!”

“Yes, that was quite a mistake.  But have no fear!  I still haven’t forgotten before.  You told me I should join the Royal Guard. That’s how I met Undyne.  You told me that if I caught a human, Sans would be really impressed with me.  That’s how I met Frisk.  And you told me to tell Undyne to write her love letter for Alphys, and that’s how I picked up a few pointers on dating.  You helped me a lot.”

Flowey groaned.  “That wasn’t help, you idiot!  That was messing with you!  The whole point was just to make sure I got you in the right place at the right time!”

“And you did, and I’m very grateful.”

“The right place and the right time for what _I_ wanted! This was supposed to end with you surrendering to me!”

“Would it make you feel better if I did?”  Papyrus waved an adjacent white dish towel like a flag.

“No no no no no no no!”

“Very good then.  Because I… don’t really know how to surrender.”  Papyrus slumped against the counter and stared at the ceiling.  “I really don’t.  But you’re the one who taught me that that’s all right.”

“Me?”  Flowey wrinkled his brow in confusion.

“Sure.  You taught me the meaning of confidence.  You said it was a good thing for somebody who wanted to join the Royal Guard.  You said I had determination.”  Papyrus smiled.  “I went for a run, I got stronger.  I lifted weights, I got stronger.  I stood up to Undyne and told her I wanted to join the Royal Guard, I got stronger. And every time I got stronger, you were happy.  You never said I was delusional or demanding.  You should be proud of yourself.  You helped build the Great Papyrus.”

“I never meant to do any of that.”

“Wowie!  Then you built something great without even trying!” Papyrus picked up Flowey’s pot and held him at eye level, then hugged him.  “And if I’m raising you, even for just a week, then I want to build something great too.”

The pot of spaghetti on the stove burst open just then.

“I… might have forgotten the right way to latch that.”

Noodles flew all over the kitchen.

“Come along, 'son’.  It’s time your father showed you how to order pizza!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flowey and Papyrus should both be grateful they don't have stomachs.


	9. Screw Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some human kids are already bored of their flour baby.

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeaaaahhhEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeahhhhEEEEEEE!!!”

“Miss… I mean, Dr. Alphys, I don’t think I’m doing this right!”

Alphys covered her ears as she went to inspect the work of a bespectacled human child at the back of the class.  “F-first, you need to move your flour baby farther a-away from your CPU when you’ve g-got it open.”  The wailing stopped, and the entire room exhaled in relief.  “Th-the hybridized magic that interfaces with your code to animate your r-robot can… can interfere w-with the mechanism that the f-flour baby uses to detect its distance from y-your cuff and that’s why it was screaming.  N-now, as for the code itself…”

“Damn, she takes forever to cut to the chase,” grumbled eighth-grader Evan Stein, who was seated across from Frisk.  Where Evan’s robot still lay open on the table, with an assortment of screws and gears rolling around willy-nilly, Frisk was driving the last screw into the plate on their robot’s back.  “Say, where’s the yellow freak I usually see you with?”

Frisk pushed a button on an adjacent remote.  Suddenly, their robot jumped up, pirouetted across the table, struck a flirty pose, then landed in a split.

“Oh… dancing with Mettaton?  I should’ve taken his extracurricular instead.  This is lame.”

Frisk glared at Evan and turned off their robot again to make some adjustments.

“Oh, like you weren’t thinking it.  We’ve been at it since September and you’re the only one whose robot does anything.  And that’s probably just that determination crap or whatever it is they say made you special enough to get through the barrier.”

“Dr. Alphys says cyberkinetic conjury takes time to master, especially for humans.  She says we’re making good progress,” Jayden Richardson offered from across the aisle.  His own robot was close to completion.

Seeing that Frisk was not interested in his opinion, Evan got up and moved to join Jayden.  He glanced back to make sure Alphys was just out of earshot before uttering his next words.  “I’ll say it takes time to master.  I don’t think it’s all it’s cracked up to be, you know that?  Even Dr. Alphys isn’t that good.”

“She designed our whole flour baby system!”

“Yeah, and they suck!”

“Hey, not saying they don’t, but they don’t suck because they don’t work, they suck because they do!”

Evan sighed concessionally.  “I bet Alphys is the one who gave Undyne that idea in the first place.  So she could show off or something.”

“Nah, I don’t think she needs to.  She’s got other projects Undyne’s seen already.”  Jayden flipped a switch and smiled in anticipation.  His face fell when nothing happened, and he opened his robot again.

“Like what?”

“Well, there’s Mettaton.”

“What about him?”

“She made him, that’s what about him!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Uh-huh!  Frisk told me!”

Evan dove under the table to grab a piece he dropped.  “Frisk told you _anything_?” he inquired skeptically.

“You know what I mean.  And I mean, it makes sense.  He’s a _robot_ , after all, so somebody had to do it.”

“So why doesn’t Alphys go make more robots and leave the rest of us alone?”

Jayden picked up his flower baby, careful not to wave it too close to any of the open robots.  “She _did_.  I bet the code in these things is derived from whatever program she used to make Mettaton in the first place.”

Evan’s eyes lit up.  He raised his hand high.

“Y-yes, Evan?”

“Dr. Alphys, I, um, just thought of something.  The magic-electric fusion cells we’re working with here might not be strong enough.  The box says they expired two weeks ago.”

Alphys picked up the box to verify this and found it to be true. “I-I’m sorry, class, no wonder y-you’ve been having tr-trouble,” she apologized.  “I-I’ll just head down to the soph-sophomore wing wh-where they keep the supplies.  Manage the b-b-best you c-can while I’m g-gone!”

She scurried out of the room.

Evan jumped up and dashed to the laptop Alphys had left open at the front of the room.

“Dude, what’re you doing??”  Jayden ran after him.  The rest of the class raised a few eyes in curiosity, but mostly remained fixated on their work.

“I’m saving us, that’s what I’m doing!” Evan declared as he shoved a jump drive into the port.  He wiggled a finger on the track pad to wake up the machine.

“Come on, man, that’s just sick!” Jayden protested in response to Alphys’ wallpaper, which comprised a piece of _Mew Mew Kissy Cutie_ fanart that was perhaps not especially suitable for display at a middle school.

“That’s not what I’m after!” Evan explained as he quickly searched the hard drive for the object of this pilferage.

A few clicks, a “save as”…

He had it.

He yanked the jump drive out and made it back to his seat just in time before their reptilian instructor returned to the room with a box of fresh fusion cells.

“This,” he whispered, panting, “is our ticket to freedom.”

“What did you do?  What the hell is that?”  Jayden leaned back, as though the disk were contaminated with a fatal pathogen.

Evan smirked triumphantly.  “This,” he boasted, “is Mettaton’s code.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jayden's not that bad considering who his mother is, but his friends are a bad influence.


	10. A Family Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toriel's flour sack dredges up some memories.

“Yo!”

Toriel checked on her snail pie (it needed maybe ten more minutes) before she answered the door.  She already knew who it was, naturally: The one friend of Frisk’s who was incapable of knocking on the door or ringing the bell.

Frisk ran down the stairs to meet Monster Kid, a knapsack slung over their shoulder in accordance with a plan the two children had already conspired.

“My child!  Where are you headed in such a hurry?”

Monster Kid waved.  “Principal Toriel!  Can Frisk spend the night at my place?  Please please please please please?”

Toriel frowned.  “Spend the night?  Oh, I don’t know about that… it’s a school night, after all, and I’ve almost finished cooking supper.”

“Please?  We’ve got a science project to do and it’ll be a lot easier if we’re in the same place because it’s about sound waves and we still have to take care of the flour baby and we’ll need to be extra-careful it doesn’t start crying because that’ll just mess everything up!”

Toriel sighed.  “They do have a way of ‘messing everything up,’ don’t they?  I rather wish Undyne could have saved the assignment for the end of the semester after we finish state testing… but that’s neither here nor there.”  She picked up her own flour baby and cradled it in one arm.  “I suppose you have been lonely all weekend in the absence of Flowey, although admittedly I fail to understand just what it is you see in that creature.  He does have a certain quality about him that I’m afraid I cannot put my finger on.”

Frisk nodded their assent and pointed at the door, raising one shoulder as they did so.

“I do suppose it would be laughable to forbid it when I’ve allowed you to undertake far riskier excursions.  You’d miss out on dinner, though… oh, but whom am I kidding?  I’ve yet to meet any human child who particularly fancied snail pie.  Not since…”  Toriel swallowed and blinked and set her flour baby down again.

“So that means yes?”  Monster Kid jumped excitedly.

“Yes, on the condition that you remember your toothbrush, Frisk.”

Frisk pulled the brush out of their backpack.

“And all of your homework that is due tomorrow.”

Frisk withdrew this as well.

“And clean underwear—all right, all right, my child, I understand,” she responded quickly to Frisk’s frustrated frown. “Would you like some snacks for when you work on your project, at least?  I have a jar of cookies.  Which kind do you prefer—butterscotch or cinnamon?”

“I like both!” Monster Kid answered.

Toriel filled a bag with the confections and dropped it into Frisk’s knapsack.  She kissed Frisk’s forehead as the latter embraced their maternal figure, and shortly thereafter the children had scurried away.

“I suppose it’s just you and me, little one,” Toriel told the flour sack.  “I don’t suppose _you_ enjoy snail pie, do you?”

Curiosity got the better of her.  She set the sack on the table and placed a thin sliver of pie before it, then watched the pie evaporate by whatever magic Alphys had applied in the interest of making the babies realistic.

“Well, I’ll be,” she mused, tucking into her own pie.  “At least I’ve got some company for supper,” she told the sack, “although it would be nice if my company could talk back.  Even though talking back is exactly what I used to scold Chara for when—”

Toriel’s blood ran cold and the pie turned bitter(er) in her mouth.

“You _aren’t_ Chara,” she said to remind herself.  “This is a project and… and you aren’t a child, human or monster.  I’m no longer a mother, except to Frisk.  But even they don’t quite need me the way my other children did.”

She took another bite.  This one seemed even bitterer than the last one, ironically because it tasted sweeter.  Her mind flipped back to another day, another table, with other children, yet with the same exact pie recipe.

_Asgore had been seated at one end of the table.  Toriel’s chair stood empty at the opposite end, because she was perched in Asgore’s lap while he fed her from his fork.  His strong, furry arm tethered her so she wouldn’t fall as she fed him as well._

_The children thought the royal couple were too wrapped up in each other to notice that Asriel, who hated garlic, had plucked out the cloves from his pie and left them on Chara’s plate, who in turn passed their rejected broccoli to Asriel.  They were mistaken, of course, but as the family was celebrating the culmination of a successful school year before the summer break, Toriel decided to let it slide._

_“A most delicious meal, Tori,” Asgore complimented his wife as he licked a crumb from his beard._

_“Anything for my sweetie ’_ pie’ _,” Toriel replied happily._

_Chara pretended to gag.  Asriel giggled.  Toriel didn’t care, as her husband had just moved to nuzzle her nose with his._

_“Can’t you two get a room?” Chara complained._

_“We have a room,” Asgore replied.  He kissed Toriel.  “We have every room in the house, in fact.”  He kissed her again.  “And I suppose, as the royal couple, every room in every house in the Underground is under our jurisdiction.”  He kissed her a third time, drawing it out as though for emphasis._

_Toriel smiled.  “Why don’t you children go play outside?  It’s a lovely evening.  Your father and I will clean up.”_

_“I bet,” Chara muttered as the children left the room._

_Toriel caught snatches of their conversation as they headed out._

_“They’ve always been that way.”_

_“Your whole life?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“So how much longer are they gonna keep it up?”_

_“Well, for the rest of their lives, I guess.  Dad says true love is forever.”_

_“That’s not the way it works in the human world.”  Chara’s voice stayed strangely level as they opened the door.  “There nobody has to love anyone.  Parents ditch their kids, and couples split up.  Everyone does, sooner or later.”_

_“Not Mom and Dad,” Asriel asserted, and then they were out of earshot._

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeaaaahhhEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeahhhhEEEEEEE!!!”

The flour sack’s cry snapped Toriel back to her present reality.

It was just her, the sack, and the snail pie.

There was no more of innocent Asriel.

There was no more of clever Chara.

There was no more of Toriel and Asgore.

Only Toriel.

And Asgore.

Who had texted her five times since the project started.

Toriel had not answered him once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what besides snails goes into a snail pie. I'm guessing with the broccoli and garlic. My sister and I used to trade veggies we didn't want, and I think Asriel and Chara are like any other siblings by this point.


	11. Betty and Veronica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Napstablook and Mettaton are two different ghosts, who will leave two different legacies, and Blooky contemplates just what those will be.

Napstablook felt a flash of panic as they saw Mettaton enter the Performing Arts wing.

He was missing an arm.

Emma was nowhere in sight.

“Blooky, darling, why the long face?”  Mettaton looked to his empty shoulder socket and laughed.  “Oh, I had to detach it so my cuff could stay with Emma in order to prevent that horrible noise when I dropped her off at daycare!”

“ _Daycare_?”  Napstablook was quite certain such qualified as cheating.

“Well, I can’t bring her with me when I skedaddle for my interview during my planning period, and I’m sure you—what’s that look?”

“I… didn’t know you had an interview today,” Napstablook admitted sheepishly.  They didn’t ask why Mettaton couldn’t have just left the flour sack with his cousin for the day, because they already had some idea.

“Well, it’s actually more of a pitch meeting—are you sure you didn’t know?  I was sure I said something on my blog…”  Mettaton pulled out out a tablet and scrolled past about three dozen selfies, about half of which featured himself posing with Emma.  Napstablook didn’t dare mention this, but those pictures were the very reason why they had stopped reading Mettaton’s blog for the time being.

It was stupid, they knew—as they had kept reminding themself ever since Undyne had issued the assignment, despite Alphys’ expert programming, the flour sack had no sentience, and thus no appreciation for Mettaton’s delight in spoiling her… _it_.  It didn’t know it had been posed in more designer outfits since Friday than any real baby would need over the course of their entire infancy.  It didn’t know that it was being fed organic fusion cuisine from the trendiest restaurants, or accompanying Mettaton to premiers and release parties where he schmoozed celebrities who thought it was the cutest thing to let Emma play with their own children and/or dogs (it was difficult to tell them apart, really).  And, had it spent more time in Napstablook’s custody, it wouldn’t have known it was naked, eating ghost PB &J, and “playing” in the dirt with the snails.

Yet the question tugged at the back of Napstablook’s mind—what if it weren’t just a flour sack?

What if, years down the road, when the robot had made it big and his cousin was still teaching at Ebottville Secondary, Mettaton really did have a daughter named Emma, and Napstablook a child named Jamie? Jamie and Emma would be second cousins, who ought to be close friends just as Napstablook and Mettaton had been growing up.

But it just couldn’t happen that way.

They probably wouldn’t go to the same school, even if Emma and Mettaton still lived in Ebottville (which seemed unlikely); but even if they were in the same class, Emma and Jamie would grow up in separate worlds.

Emma would make a grand entrance to school every morning, popping out of a hot pink limousine one day, blasting through a giant smokescreen the next, zipping in on a hoverboard the third.  Jamie would ask Napstablook to drop them off about a block away so nobody would see them driving to school with their guardian.

Emma would host killer parties every Friday night, the kind of parties that attracted kids who didn’t even go to her school and took all weekend to recover from.  Jamie would watch a few cartoons after they finished their homework and go to bed early.

Emma’s sweet-sixteen would feature a brand-new Jaguar and a beach house in Cancun.  Jamie might get their braces off and a round of mini-golf.

She’d wear short skirts, they’d wear T-shirts.

Would Emma even really know Jamie existed?

“…and they’d definitely pull the viewers now that monsters are all the rage, and with Yours Truly hosting, I—Blooky?”

Napstablook broke out of their musing in response to the incongruously concerned tone their cousin took in uttering their name.

“Right.  And you’ll get your arm back when you pick Emma up after your meeting, won’t you?”

Mettaton grinned.  “Bingo.  Then there’s this darling little café where we could celebrate my victory.  I hear their lemon macaron is to _die_ for.”

Napstablook swallowed.  “Sounds fun.  Enjoy yourselves!”

The bell rang just then, and Napstablook floated through the wall into the band room, where a coalition of unruly pubescent instrumentalists awaited them.

“Class, if you’d turn to page 17…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mettaton's pitch is for a reality show. If I ever write more in this continuity, you might find out what that show is.


	12. Flowey and Fauna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus is the good kind of dad who takes his kid to the zoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zebras, as I discovered one day at the zoo with my kid sister, have no shame. So much for a wholesome family activity. But Papyrus means well.

“Well, that was certainly informative!”  Papyrus adjusted the strap on the carrier in which Flowey was nestled for their day at the Ebottville Zoological Park and Botanical Gardens.

“I never want to see zebras again,” Flowey declared, shuddering at the recollection of the activities of two equids in particular.

“Would a stroll through the Butterfly Gardens cheer you up?”

“Sure!  Then I could blend in with all the other flowers and you would never find me!”

But Papyrus was just then distracted by a piece of signage.  “Wowie! The Small Mammal House is having a special lecture on bunnies at 2:30!  I wonder if they’re anything like the books?”

Flowey sighed, exasperated.

“How’s that word search coming along?”

“I _told_ you, I… amstilllookingfor'iguana'and'penguin’. And my pencil’s broken,” Flowey admitted sheepishly.

“Never fear, the Great Papyrus always comes prepared!”  Papyrus produced a second pencil and placed it in the palm of Flowey’s leaf.

“What’s all the fuss over puzzle books anyway?”

“They’re my favorite!”

“Yeah, but why?”

Papyrus stopped in front of the petting zoo, but continued on again at the realization that something about the goats made Flowey uneasy. “Sans and I used to do the ones that came on the boxes while we ate our breakfast cereal.  He’s my _older_ brother, believe it or not.  I always told him when we were small that if he wouldn’t drink his milk I’d become taller than he was some day, and it looks like I was right!  My son, you should always drink plenty of milk!”

“Peachy,” Flowey muttered.  “You know I don’t have bones at all, right?”

“That’s no excuse!  No milk, no dessert, my boy!”

“You’re not my real dad!”

Papyrus stiffened, if that was possible for a creature already constructed entirely of osteal tissue, and shuffled farther down the cobblestone pathway, mindlessly pausing for a minute or two at each exhibit before continuing.

Finally, he spoke.

“I used to tell Sans he wasn’t my real dad,” Papyrus admitted next to the tiger pit.

“Well he’s not, unless you skeletons have some really twisted practices.”  Flowey should have known by now that attempts to elicit a “shut up” from Papyrus were about as fruitless as attempts to elicit any words at all from Frisk, but provocation had long been a habit of his.  He changed tactics.  “So what did your real dad think?”

“We didn’t have one.  And our mother passed on before I could remember much about her.  I do know her name was Arial, and she was in the Royal Guard.”

“Wait, back up.  Obviously you _had_ a dad.”

“Not us.  But when I was twelve years old, Sans started pretending we did.  It was disturbing for a while.  He named our imaginary father ‘Gaster’ and said he was the Royal Scientist or something.  He made up all kinds of stories about him taking us to the garbage dump on weekends and inventing a new kind of laser-tag for my eighth birthday, which of course I would have remembered if it happened.  It was all quite childish, as I understood even then.  That was when I realized it would have to be I who acted as the adult between us from then on.  Eventually he stopped making up the stories, but he never truly learned responsibility, or else he’d be here right now!  But… I suppose I cannot take all the credit for your upbringing.”

Resisting the temptation to roll his eyes, Flowey questioned, “What do you mean?”

“Taking you to the zoo today was his idea.  I always used to ask Sans when we could go, and he promised that if we ever made it to the surface, we would.”

“Sans promised you anything?  I’ve only heard of him making promises once.”

“Well… it wasn’t direct.  He used to say Gaster wanted his boys to learn zoology, one of the hardest sciences to study in the Underground, and that he’d vowed to take us one day.  But if Gaster said it, and Sans made up Gaster, then I guess it was Sans who really said it.”

“So that’s why we’re sitting here smelling feces from 43 different species of animal when it’s hot outside?”

“I’m sorry, perhaps it is time we went home.”

“Well… maybe not yet.  Not until I find that dumb iguana.”

A familiar face manned an ice cream cart about fifty yards away, inspiring Papyrus.

“Nice Cream sounds like something a step-father would buy for his step-son on a day like today.”

“Can I get rocky road?”

“Sure.  As long as it’s dairy-based.  We need something to make up for the calcium you skipped at breakfast!”

“Oh, come _on_!”


	13. Autumn Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asgore attempts to relieve Toriel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with my headcanon. For this chapter to make sense, you have to accept that I do not believe Toriel and Asgore were the king and queen when the monsters were sealed underground, but rather that Asgore is part of a dynasty of ruling boss monsters. As such, they are no more familiar with the surface than are anyone else in the underground; I believe Gerson is the only monster left who has seen the surface.

Toriel could feel the thick, heavy sort of dread ooze through her veins before she had even begun to speculate as to who could be knocking on the door to her office.

There were so many possibilities, not one of which she looked forward to in the slightest.  There was the usual trickle of students reporting for disciplinary action because they had been caught writing suggestive words on the bathroom walls, or smoking (Pyropes excluded), or flexing themselves out of class early, or dropping a sheet of paper under the supervision of a particularly disgruntled substitute teacher.  It was also possibly a state inspector intent on analyzing the food’s nutritional content; it had, after all, been rather a long time since the last “random” visitation, and Toriel suspected they were due for another one soon.  And then there were the streams of parents intent on challenging a book’s inclusion in the library, the presence of soda in the vending machines, the lack of a dress code (but what universal standard could even apply to a student body whose bodies were shaped so differently?), or a particular disciplinary action.  But worst of all, it could be—

Asgore tugged nervously at the sleeve of his Hawaiian shirt.

“It’s only Tuesday, Mr. Dreemurr,” she reminded him curtly. “You were scheduled for grounds maintenance on Thursday.”

“That’s… that isn’t why I’m here, Tori,” he started.

“Of course it isn’t, but seeing as you have no other business with me—”

“You’ve had our flour sack this entire time.”

“And?”

“And… I know the difficulties you face as an administrator.  I’d like to alleviate one of them.”

Toriel sighed and closed her eyes.  “Then take the stupid thing and go.”

Asgore looked like he was about to say something else, but instead he acquiesced and left without another word, sack in hand, cradling it tenderly as he had so many years ago.

_Even though she had never seen sunlight in person, Toriel felt that it must look something like the golden beams that filtered through the_ _tree_ _s as she entered Asgore’s throne room. Nearby, the royal children rolled around in the bliss of autumn,_ _Asriel buried neck-deep in a pile they had accumulated,_ _Chara’s face obscured by an armful of_ _the colorful frond_ _s they had gathered._

_The king smiled a weary smile at his wife.  “My darling,_ _shouldn’t you be resting at home?  You needn’t appear before the court until Thursday’s gala, and I know last night’s fanfare was taxing for you.”_

_“As it was for you, and that’s exactly why I’m here, my sweet,” Toriel replied.  “Children!  Come home with me and we’ll have hot cider and read spooky stories!”_

_At the mention of hot cider, Asriel barged right through_ _his_ _mound of_ _leaves, kicking up a shower of yellow and orange as he ran to his mother.  At the mention of_ _spooky_ _stories, Chara dropped their bouquet and did likewise._ _They threw their arms around Toriel as she absentmindedly picked twigs from Chara’s hair and Asriel’s fur._

_“Tori, if that’s your business, I assure you our children pose no trouble for me.”_

_“You have silly string on your crown, dear.”_

_As_ _gore_ _hastily removed the strands of green and pink from his diadem, while Chara and Asriel giggled._ _Toriel shot them a stern but loving look._

_“Your kingly duties have not been easy,” she continued, “particularly with the… speculation… of potential human incursion that has circulated as of late.”  Toriel hoped her loquacious vocabulary would prevent too many questions on the children’s part regarding whether a human invasion was in fact likely.  So far, not a single human (save for Chara) had landed in the underground since the war, but Asgore’s administration had had to deal with alleged public sightings for as long as Toriel had been his wife.  She wondered if the perception of this threat had been amplified since her husband had ascended the throne, or if there had been a time when his father before him had shielded a young Asgore from the same sort of rumors, if someday Chara or Asriel would conceal them from their own heirs.  “I think it best that you_ _not compound the stress by multitasking.  You know what a handful the short ones can be!”_

_Asriel blushed while Chara smirked.  Asgore sighed._

_“You’re probably right, my dear,” he admitted.  “As fond as I am of bringing them to court with me, there is in fact business I must tend to that would be simpler in their absence.”  He hugged his children tightly.  “I’ll be home before they must be in bed.”_

_Toriel could feel his longing stare on her back as she turned to leave, Chara clutching her right hand, Asriel gripping her left._

Another knock sounded on Toriel’s door, and she almost didn’t answer it.

It was a pair of students, one Froggit and one human, who had been caught decorating the driver’s ed car with silly string.

“You mustn’t do that ever again, children,” she told them icily. “Go back to class.”

Their hops and footsteps echoed in the empty school corridor, until they disappeared into the freshman wing.


	14. Cheaters Never Prosper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monster Kid is almost led astray by a woman.

Monster Kid had left their Spanish class and was just scanning the hallway in search of Frisk, who should have been coming out of pre-algebra, when they found themselves planted face-first on the floor as their flour sack skittered away.  The former fact was of course not unusual, but the latter was quite inconvenient, compounded by the fact that a much bigger kid, Darrin Jenkins, chose that moment to practice his soccer skills.

“Yo!  That’s mine!  Give it back!”

This outburst, naturally, had the opposite of its intended effect. “Lookit this dweeb!  Still hauling around that thing like a big fat loser!”  He flung the sack into the nearest open locker, prompting a shriek from the locker’s owner as a stream of white powder spilled all over his cheerleading uniform.

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeaaaahhhEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeahhhhEEEEEEE!!!” the sack cried out in protest of the rough treatment.

Luckily, Frisk exited their class just then, and happened to have a bandage in their pocket.  This quickly pacified their baby, which they strapped to their back as they helped Monster Kid to their feet.

“Thanks!” Monster Kid gasped.

A trio of human girls in miniskirts walked past just then, and Monster Kid blushed profusely as they sneered disdainfully at the flour sack.  Frisk stuck their tongue out at them in response.

“You’re… you’re right.  I’m better off without them,” Monster Kid told Frisk without much conviction.  The former had recently confided in the latter that they were starting to find girls attractive, which of course would not have been such a big deal if not for the fact that it was human girls, specifically, who made the prepubescent monster stutter and lose their balance.  “They always make me feel like such a dork.”

“That’s ‘cuz you are a dork, dork!”  Darrin had evidently not left.  “Fussing over that dumb assignment.  'Look at me, I’m Monster Kid and I’m gonna get an A and be Undyne’s pet and clap all the erasers after school and marry Principal Toriel!'”  Darrin batted his eyelashes to emphasize the mockery.

“Yo… I never said any of that!  All I was doing was carrying my flour baby and trying not to break it!”

Frisk nodded supportively.

“Yeah… like a _dork_!”  Darrin strutted away, laughing his head off.

Frisk pantomimed a stabbing motion.  Monster Kid smiled.

“I thought you were supposed to be some kind of pacifist?” they asked wryly.

Frisk shrugged and smiled back.

That was when Gina Lewis strolled into view, and Monster Kid felt themself go as speechless as Frisk typically was.

“Oh, you decided not to reboot your flour sack?  It seems like everyone else has,” she commented, making Monster Kid very glad they were not the one physically holding the sack at that moment.

Frisk gave their friend a thumbs-up and pushed their friend a few inches closer to the girl.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

She shrugged.  “There’s some kind of program they’re passing around.  Evan Stein came up with it.  He hacked the code so that the flour sacks think they’re always with you even if they’re sitting in your closet at home.  They think they’re being fed and changed, too. As long as you remember to bring it back on Friday, Coach Undyne will be none the wiser.”

And sure enough, as Monster Kid’s eyes darted up and down the hallway, they saw that the sack they shared with Frisk was the only one in sight.

Now they really did feel like a dork.

“I’ve got English with his friend Jayden next period.  He’s the one who told me about it.  If… if you want, I could see if I can hook you up.”  Gina’s brown eyes sparkled hopefully as she made the offer.

Monster Kid felt like they were floating.  They shivered as they turned to Frisk, inquisitive as to their opinion, but the human shook their head assertively, and the monster knew they were right.

Feeling as lame as a kid in a 1990s PSA, Monster Kid responded, “I’m sorry, I… I’d feel like I was cheating.”

Gina took a step back and looked away.  “Oh… okay, then,” she resigned.

“Imeanit'snotabigdealanyway,” Monster Kid sputtered, then cleared their throat and tried again.  “It’s already Wednesday, I mean.  We’ve put up with it this long, we might as well stick it out another two days, right?”

Gina smiled and looked up again.  “Well, maybe.  He’d probably make you do something stupid in return, anyway.  He’s already gotten like three girls to go out with him, and then one of those icy kids traded his favorite hat for it.  I’m lucky, all he wanted from me was the answer to number eight on the math homework.”  She covered her mouth as a halo of pink adorned her cheeks.  “Um… but let me know if you change your mind.  There’s probably some way to grab the code from someone who’s already had it done.  Then it wouldn’t have to cost you anything.”

Monster Kid brightened.  “Th-thanks, Gina,” they answered her truthfully as the bell rang.  “Yo, uh, we’d… we’d better run.”

Gina nodded and waved goodbye.

“Oh, cut it out!” Monster Kid demanded in response to the kissy faces Frisk was making.  Frisk only grinned smugly and tossed the flour sack to their friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helen Richardson notwithstanding, most of Ebottville doesn't really care about sexual orientation, but human/monster relationships are still somewhat taboo, mostly because the human and monster populations are still getting used to each other. Give it a few years, and Monster Kid's crush on Gina won't seem at all out of the ordinary.


	15. Illusions of Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans and Toriel abandon their projects and make some puns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans won't tell you this, but he gets ketchup-induced nightmares.

_He was standing at the threshold, of just what he couldn’t say._

_Behind him, the world was surprisingly still.  The clock ticked at a rate of once per second.  The drawings on the wall had four figures in each of them.  A_ _grease-stained_ _bag of fries from Grillby’s lay on its side between a series of beakers and test tubes, never to be touched again._ _There was also a flamingo, for some reason, but_ _somehow_ _its existence seemed far too natural to question._

_Before him, a million years passed almost instantly and then circled back to the beginning of time.  A conglomerate of souls—human and monster, entwined and unfading, requiring no determination to persevere—buzzed as though hosting a conference the likes of which no mortal could comprehend.  There were colors one could taste, sounds one could smell, emotions one could touch.  And Frisk stared back, pointing at something behind him that made him turn around._

_Flowey emerged from the tile floor, desperately shaking off grains of flour._

_Flowey spoke, in a most uncharacteristically childish voice:_

_“You still haven’t told me_ why _!”_

_The reply that answered was all too familiar.  “I’ve told you why, you just can’t accept it.”_

_“We don’t care about the barrier.  We care about you!”_

_“And I you.”_

_“Then take us with you!”_

_“I cannot, for I am not going anywhere.  My existence is to cease for the greater good.”_

_“You’re killing yourself!”_

_“Negative._ _You cannot destroy that which is not.  And the moment I transcend, I will not be, and will never have been, and shall never be again.”_

_Flowey dropped to his knees (how exactly did a plant even have knees?) and sobbed, “First Mom, and now you!  It’s not fair!”_

_“It isn’t meant to be fair, my child.  It is meant to be good. And if you had obeyed and stayed out of the laboratory as I told you to do, then this would be far easier.  But as I can no longer shield you of this memory, then perhaps some good can come of that as well. I realize that you see me as in no position to make demands, but as my parting words, I ask that you look after Papyrus.  You are now his only family, and he is yours.”_

_Flowey spat.  “Well then good riddance!”  He disappeared into the ground._

_One of the figures in the drawings on the walls evaporated before his very eyes.  The room grew very large, very cold, very hollow._

_A mirror sprung up and he took one last look at his reflection._

_Gast_ _e_ _r grinned back at him._

“'Water’ you up to?”

Sans bolted upright out of the lounge chair as Toriel sat down beside him.

“Just catching some Z’s.  They’re so darn fast,” he told her as he scrambled to arrange an appropriate smile.

“They’re like those kids in detention.  Aren’t you glad it’s not your day to supervise?”

“I’ll say.  It’s taking all my concentration to ditch my flour sack.  I’d be beat if I had to ditch the hooligans too.”

Toriel smiled at him and leaned back.  “Fortunately, the ‘hooligans’ haven’t been as rowdy today as they were when they first got the assignment.  Although we did have to get Hallway to clean flour out of one of the cheerleaders’ lockers.  Lucky they weren’t roughhousing around the pool, or Onionsan’s kids over there would be swimming in a big cistern of glue.”

“Well, at least they found an extracurricular they can 'stick’ with!”

Toriel giggled.  “Good to know our swim team 'paste’ itself!”

“Well, the team uniforms all look pretty good, did they get a new 'set’?”  Sans paused as he scrutinized Toriel.  “Speaking things you get stuck with, is your sack with Asgore?”

“Yes, he… he took it with him yesterday.  If he did finally ditch the thing, he did it out of earshot.”

Sans folded his arms behind his head.  “At least it’s spending quality time with its father.”

“It doesn’t _have_ a father,” Toriel corrected.  “It doesn’t _need_ one.  It’s a sack of flour with an enchantment and a microchip.  In less than two days, we’ll give it back to Undyne, and for all I care, it’ll be like it never existed.  Erased from existence.”

Silently, they watched a Froggit dive deep beneath the surface, which rippled as he entered but smoothed out again before he emerged to disturb it once more.

“Yeah,” Sans concurred.  “I don’t suppose anyone can really ‘stick together’ that long.”  He froze.  “Hey, how 'bout we make some bread puns now?  These glue puns are getting a little 'stale’.”

“Sure, if you’ll just 'wheat’ a while!”


	16. A Future With You In It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Napstablook comes to realize that they've fundamentally misunderstood some of Mettaton's motivations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Mettaton could rock the flannel, don't you?

****

The sight of a figure in a flannel shirt and sunhat at the end of the snail pasture wouldn’t have frightened Napstablook, had they not remembered having taken down the scarecrow the previous night after realizing that the crows weren’t especially fond of Underground snails anyway.  They dashed down the hill to fend off the intruder, only to find that a much more intimidating (and familiar) face grinned at them from under the straw brim as they drew nearer.

“Easy there, Blook-o, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost!” Mettaton smirked as he pulled the hat off and tossed it onto Napstablook’s head.  “Which would be a major bummer, seeing as it would mean giving up this _fabulous_ meat-suit that isn’t made of meat!  Not to mention it might scare the baby!”  He twirled in place, and as he did so, Napstablook saw that Emma was strapped to his torso in an infant carrier, a miniature sunhat on her own head.

“Oh… right…”  Naturally, Mettaton wouldn’t want any ghostly forms present while he was performing whatever photo shoot with his school-sponsored fashion accessory.  Napstablook courteously started to fade…

“Whoa, hold up, Blooky, didn’t you come out here to feed the snails?  You could demonstrate some charming bucolic practices that tiny eyes might appreciate.”

“Didn’t _you_ come out here to get pictures for your blog?” Napstablook solidified again, and felt oddly heavy for perhaps the first time in their life.  “Don’t you need me out of the way so I don’t spoil the image?”

Mettaton’s robotic eyes widened.  He took a step back, and Napstablook floated forward to fill in the extra space.

“Don’t you have a career to think about?  Followers who expect to see a perky robot and glitter and a funny little doll in high-end baby dresses?  Followers who _don’t_ expect to see a bunch of muddy snail stalls getting mucked out by a white blob who might scare the children?”

Napstablook wasn’t sure, but it seemed like Mettaton squeezed Emma a little more tightly just then.

“A white blob whose only purpose in life _is_ to muck out those stalls, and maybe teach those children their scales when they’re old enough to stop being afraid of ghosts?  Especially sad little ghosts who could’ve finished their life’s work in the Underground without butting into their cousins’ stage careers?” Napstablook turned around so they were not looking at Mettaton.  “Sad little ghosts who… who should just get lost anyway?”

They floated back up the hill, back to their half of the house.  Yet despite being powered by the intense-yet-contained fury that had finally bubbled to the surface, they still did not reach the door before Mettaton, who spread his arms wide across the entrance.  What, exactly, this was supposed to accomplish, Napstablook wasn’t sure, but perhaps having had a physical body for so long had made Mettaton forget what being incorporeal was like.

Just another check mark on the list of things he’d like to forget.

Napstablook stopped in their tracks anyway.

“Blooky, I—Blook, that is _not_ what I came out here for.”

Napstablook stared at Mettaton, finally realizing the one detail they’d overlooked this whole time.

There was not a single camera in sight.

“I took Emma out here because, if I had a daughter for reals, that’s what I would do.”  Mettaton sat down on the cement porch.

Napstablook had not considered this.  “Why?”

“Because this is a snail farm, and snail-farming is what ghosts _do_.  At least, it’s what you and I and the whole Blook family has done for many, many generations.  And even though Emma’s father isn’t a ghost anymore, and maybe I’ve never really been one… I’d want her to know that if she’s one, it’s all right.  And that even if she isn’t, she still has a lot to be proud of.”

“You just said ghosts were too scary.”

“I said _me_ as a ghost would be too scary.  Because I’m not one, and that’s not the dad any child of mine would ever know.  But there’s nothing scary at all about seeing Auncle Blooky as a ghost, because that’s exactly what they are.”

“You’ve… you’ve thought about this.”  Napstablook hovered at eye-level with their cousin.  “About what your child would think about you… and me… and our whole family.”

“Darn _straight_ I’ve thought about it!  I can’t make the same mistakes all over again.”

“What mistakes?”

“Mistakes like forgetting my family!”  Mettaton jumped to his feet.  “Mistakes like ditching the snails and the music and the invisible sandwiches!  Here, on the surface, I thought I had a second chance.  That I could rebuild my career so that it has you in it. Maybe you could be a DJ, or host a radio program, or compile movie soundtracks.  Anything to get you out of a lifetime of spit valves and wobbly music stands, that’s for sure.  But I guess… I guess after last time, you just don’t want that kind of life.  Not if it has me in it.”  Mettaton folded his arms tightly across his chest. “I blew it, Blook.  I broke every promise we made when we were kids and there’s no going back.  I guess I just hoped that, with everything different now with monsterkind being free and all, maybe there was some going forward.”

Napstablook watched their cousin in silence for the longest time. Then, they passed through the door into the house, rising up through the floor of the second story until they found what they were looking for.

“Do… do you think you can remember everything you just said?” Napstablook held the camera steady, grateful that the absence of hands made it impossible to have shaky ones.  “I think lots of folks online would love to hear it.”


	17. One Of Our Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphys and Undyne discuss a possibility they haven't so far considered.

“Okay, now… I need you to smile big!”

“L-like th-th-this?”  Alphys’ lips twitched upward awkwardly.

“Like _this_.”  Undyne demonstrated with an enormous grin, every single one of her razor-sharp teeth gleaming in the fluorescent light as she snapped a selfie of herself, Alphys, and Dokusonmaru at the foot of the stairs to their apartment.

Alphys blushed.  “O-okay, l-like that.  I, um, have some work to f-finish b-b-before m-midnight, though.”

“Oooh yah, we could get some candid shots of mother-child bonding in the lab!  Whatcha doin’ today, Al?”

“N-nothing all that exciting.  Not really anything worth taking pictures of.”

Undyne pecked the top of Alphys’ head, making her blush even though they were alone.  “As long as you’re there, I say there’s _plenty_ worth taking pictures of.  Besides, we’ve only got two more days to pose with this little guy-or-girl before it’s time to put it away till next year!”

“I g-guess if… if it makes you h-happy.”  Alphys crossed over the threshold into the garage, where her workstation was equipped with some series of circuits and enchanted talismans that she had explained to Undyne at one point, though Undyne hadn’t really understood it all.

“Are you gonna tell Dokusonmaru about how all this works?”

“What, the conversion of kinetic magical energy to potential chemical energy?” Alphys asked, for once not stuttering now that she was in her element.  “I-I don’t think a real… a real kid would be interested in… in any of th-that stuff.”

“Ours would.  And seeing as this is the closest we’ll ever have to one of our own, I think Dokusonmaru is _totally_ interested. Right, Dokusonmaru?”  She made the flour sack nod with her hand, giggling as she did so.

Alphys donned a pair of safety goggles and flipped a switch, then startled, flipped the switch again, and yanked the goggles off so she could get a better look at her girlfriend and pretend-child.

“What’s wrong?”

“Undyne, I… i-i-is _that_ why you did all of this?”

“Did all of what?”

“Made the en-entire sch-sch-school pl-play h-h-house f-for a whole w-week!  S-so y-y-you and I could… could find out wh-what it would be like?”

It was Undyne’s turn to blush.  She ran her hand behind her neck, her gills flipping backwards as she did so.  “Um… maybe?  Like I was just kind of curious, you know?  Ever since Gloria asked if we thought we’d ever have children and we said we didn’t know, I’ve wondered what it would be like.  I mean, yeah there’s Frisk and Monster Kid and all those kids at school, but I mean like our _own_. And this was the only way to find out since that can never really happen.”

Alphys swallowed.  She tapped her fingers on the workbench and swung her legs for a full minute without saying a word.

“Al?”  Undyne’s breath caught.

“That… that m-might not b-be en… entirely true.”

Undyne sat next to Alphys and sighed, setting Dokusonmaru aside under the bench as she put a hand on Alphys’ knee.  “Look, I’d be down for adopting a child, I really would.  But realistically, we’ve got three strikes against us, at least.  We’re monsters, to start, and I don’t think all the humans trust us yet.  We’re lesbians, unmarried lesbians at that, though I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.  And we live in a tiny apartment with a lab where we store dangerous chemicals and cursed objects.  It’s damn fun, but… there’s no way the state would approve us to adopt like this.” Just then, Undyne realized Alphys was shaking her head fervently. “What’s up?”

“I d-didn’t mean adopting.  I m-meant we… we could have one biologically.  P-please d-d-don’t b-be m-m-mad, but I… I’ve been sequencing your DNA—”

Undyne’s face grew pale and she held up one hand.  “Wait wait wait, you mean like… _cloning_?  I mean, you think the world’s ready for another kid who’s _all_ me?”

“I d-d-didn’t m-mean cloning, either!”  Alphys exhaled and looked away, but Undyne put an arm around her and drew her closer. She rested her head against Undyne’s ribcage.  “U _-_ Undyne, there’s… there’s something you should know about… about your genetic patterns.  You’re not really a fish.  At least, not entirely.”

“Well, yeah, I’m a _monster_.  A fish-monster.”

“You’re also a frog-monster.  Not a lot, just a tiny bit!” Alphys was speaking more quickly now, but somehow not tripping over her words too much.  “And… and the bit that is, is strikingly similar to the African Reed Frog, to be exact.  Specifically… specifically, the genes that allow it to change from female to male in response to certain environmental stresses.”

“Hold up, you’re saying I’d turn into a _dude_?”  Butch though she had always been, Undyne had never once considered herself to be anything other than all-girl.

“ _No_ , Undyne, no amount of science or magic could change the way you identify.  You know that.  And like I said, there’s only a tiny bit of frog- _like_ DNA in your genome, so even your biological sex wouldn’t change too much.  The only real difference would be the type of gametes you’d produce.  There might be some accompanying hormonal fluctuations, things like increased aggression, but I’m not sure you’d… I’m not sure you’d even notice it.”

Undyne’s eyes were so wide that Alphys questioned whether she should’ve inspected her girlfriend for ostrich DNA as well.  “Whoa. Man, that’s… that’s _amazing_.”  She jumped up and started pacing the floor, lost in thought.  “That’s… I mean… how long have you known about this?”

Alphys lay back on the bench now that Undyne had vacated a spot.  “A while.  I… months, now, all right?”

“ _Months_?  Why didn’t you tell me sooner?  We could’ve… I mean, I don’t know how exactly to work the, um, mechanism you described, but maybe by now we’d’ve figured something out and… and I don’t know… but we could…”

“Undyne, it’s… it’s not that simple, all right?  The change isn’t something that fires randomly, nor is it a choice.  It happens when the species is in trouble.  So if yours really is like the frog’s, then it would take some kind of stressful trigger to make it happen.  I’m not sure just how stressful.  I don’t even know for sure what that trigger would be, whether it’s something as simple as a hormonal injection or something a little… or a lot… more painful.”  Alphys covered her eyes with her hands.  “I don’t want to hurt you, Undyne.  Especially when we don’t even know for sure if it would work at all.  All this is just a hypothesis based on patterns I’m seeing.  And… and hypotheses can be wrong.  Terribly, awfully wrong.”

Undyne knelt next to the bench and pried Alphys’ hands away from her face.  “Al, that’s… it’s a risk I’d be willing to take, if it was something you wanted.  After all, you’d still be the one laying the egg, and there’s risk in that, too.”

“It _is_ something I want,” Alphys admitted.  “More than you even know.”

Undyne picked up Alphys and gave her a light toss into the air, catching her under her arms and swinging her around.  “Then I guess it’s time for my scientist to conduct a little more research, hmm?” She held her face up to Alphys’, who closed the gap with a quick yet passionate kiss.

They held each other tightly for a long while before Alphys timidly asked, “Upstairs?”

“Upstairs,” Undyne agreed.

She clutched Alphys to her chest as she sprinted out of the garage, up the stairs, and—

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeaaaahhhEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeahhhhEEEEEEE!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come on, we all think it'd be adorable.


	18. Cloaked Emotions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toriel finds something she didn't want to in the lost-and-found, and has no choice but to return it to its rightful owner.

Frisk had gone to bed early, the flour sack was with Asgore, and Toriel had some peace and quiet for once.  In theory, anyway.

She could have spent the evening knitting, or reading, or resting calmly by the fire.  Instead, every time she started to sit back down on the couch, another minor task occurred to her.  This shelf needed dusting.  That mirror ought to be wiped.  Someone needed to throw out the abandoned quiche at the back of the refrigerator.  Frisk had neglected to water Flowey before going to bed, she would just have to do it for them.

Wait, Flowey was with Papyrus for the week.  So much for that.

She racked her brain for something, anything else she could do besides sit still and fidget.  Were all of Frisk’s shoes lined up neatly by the door?  She had asked them to do it, but maybe they’d forgotten.  She’d just have to check.

Yes, the shoes were in order, but what about the coats?

Coats.

Scarves, mittens, hats, tutus, frying pans…

It had been a long while since she had sorted through the lost-and-found box from the office.  She’d brought it home a week or two ago, figuring she’d do it in her spare time, but that stupid flour baby had made her forget all about it.

She had time now.

She threw away most of the broken pencils, dried-up pens, and erasers that had never worked that well to begin with.  Here was a nice pair of sneakers, she’d better hang onto them in case the owner came back.  Oh, and she was pretty sure this necklace belonged to Catty, or maybe Bratty; one of them had been wearing it a while back.  She pushed the tutu and the frying pan to the side; she’d decide what to do with them later.

And then she saw it.

A soft, velvety robe whose scent she recognized all too well.

Before she could will herself not to, she was sniffing it, breathing in the scent of all those years he’d spent on the throne, by her side, in her bed.  Carrying her over the threshold on their wedding night.  Bringing her tea when she was sick.  Building a pillow fort with the children on rainy days.

Being _Asgore._

She must not cry, must not let Frisk hear her getting emotional over a cloak that was rather silly for Asgore to have taken to school anyway.  No sense in letting it get to her.

But to avoid that, she’d have to get the robe out of the house. Now.  Not tomorrow, when she brought the box back to school.   _Now_.

But _now_ there was only one place to take it, and she knew where it was.

She turned off all the lights behind her before setting out.

She didn’t know what she expected when he opened the door.  The part of her that imagined him kissing her was clearly delusional, as was the part that imagined him deliberately not opening the door at all. Would he be happy to see her?  Would he have the sack with him? Would he say anything, or just take the robe and go?

Then there he was, ushering her inside, a finger pressed to his lips.

“Our child is asleep,” he whispered.

“It takes a lot more noise than that to trip the sound sensors on that thing.  And it isn’t our child.”  The scent of the robe tucked under Toriel’s arm wafted past her nose, and she held her breath as she held the garment out to her former husband.  “You left this on school grounds.  It’s time I gave it back to you.”

“Thank you, Tori.”  An awkward pause.  “Would you like some tea?”

“Yes.”  Toriel felt like she had just uttered a swear word in front of a student.  “I… I’ll just hang this up for you while you boil the water.”

She hung it up.  He boiled the water.

More silence.

He poured the tea into two waiting mugs.  They sat down to drink it.

“I'msorryI'vebeensohardonyouthisweek,” Toriel spilled.  She took a sip, scalding hot though it was.  “I mean… it’s been stressful, all right?”

Asgore frowned.  “Motherhood was never stressful on you before, even when you had to balance your role as queen with two mischievous children.”

“ _No_ , Asgore, it isn’t the motherhood that stresses me. This isn’t motherhood at all.  It’s a mockery thereof and I find the whole thing to be in very poor taste!”  Toriel cleared her throat. “What I mean is… it’s stressful because it _isn’t_ motherhood.”  She flinched, not having meant to divulge this vulnerability.

Asgore nodded.  “It doesn’t compare to the real thing.  Even years later, I still catch myself checking my drawers in case Chara left a spider in one of them, and almost plugging in a night-light for Asriel.”

Toriel was shaking her head violently.  “Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop making it about you!”

Asgore nearly dropped his cup, injured.

Toriel continued.  “You lost Asriel and Chara, sure.  So did I. But Asgore, you’ve _killed_ more children than you’ve lost!   _My_ children!”

“Your children?”

“The six humans who fell between Chara and Frisk!  They stopped at my home, every single one of them.  I knew their names.  I baked them pies.  But sooner or later, every single one of them left.  Every single one of them left to go down at the hands of _you_.” She pushed her chair back and stood up.  “ _Why_ , Asgore?  Why did you do that?  Why couldn’t you have taken the first one and… and just gone?”

“Because I had to break the barrier!”  Asgore stood up as well. “Chara _died_ so we could be free.  You know that as well as I do, even though we always pretended it didn’t happen that way.  And after… after what the humans did to Asriel, I… I knew it would take more than just one human soul and one monster soul.”

“You were _scared_ of the humans, Asgore.  I thought our king to be above that.”

“Scared, yes, but not just for myself,” he explained.  “If I died up there… I wouldn’t be the only one to die.  Whatever souls I collected, however peacefully, would be lost the moment I was killed, and then they would have been taken for nothing.”

“How noble of you.”

“It’s true!”

“And what would it have accomplished, anyway?  Your children would still be dead!” Toriel’s eyes felt like they were about to melt.  “Your… your children are still dead.  And thanks to you, the rest of my children are as well.”

Asgore exhaled.  He crossed his arms and looked down.

“Not… not all of my children are dead, Tori.”  He sat back down.  “After losing Chara… and then Asriel… and then you… I was alone, Tori!  I was like you.  I yearned for another child, to be a parent again.  And one day, it happened.”  He lay his arms on the table.  “There was a child, a wayward girl who attempted to attack me.  At the time I merely found it amusing, and thought nothing of offering to train her.  So sure enough, she came over every day, for many hours at a time, sometimes even squeezing in an extra session before school.  I asked if her parents were comfortable with her spending this much time away from home.  Only to find out…”

Toriel gasped.  “She didn’t have any?”

Asgore twirled his empty cup with his pinkie.  “Worse than that, Toriel.”

“Oh my heavens, I never…”

Asgore held up a hand.  “It’s… probably best that I divulge no further details.  Those are hers to discuss as she sees fit.  My point is, she became my child.  My daughter.  And I think you know as well as I do, that if you’ve lost a child, and you have another who is alive and well…”

“You’ll break the world to keep them that way,” Toriel finished.  She did know that all too well, as her mind split back to Frisk, sleeping peacefully at home.

“Or to give them something better.  Undyne deserved her freedom.  And that made my whole war-on-humans more than an empty threat issued in a fit of rage.  Because in having done so, I had _promised_ her her freedom.  And darn if she didn’t want it.”

Toriel wiped her eyes with an adjacent napkin.  “I… I think I can see why you’re on board with her flour sack campaign.  If you’d murder to make her happy, then feeding an imaginary baby is nothing.”  She shook herself.  “But… but that doesn’t make it right.  None of this makes what you did right.”

Asgore nodded solemnly.  “I know that, Tori.  I don’t expect you to think it does, or to forgive me, or even to understand.  I just thought… I just thought you had a right to know.”

Toriel folded her arms.  “Thank you for telling me.  And… and I do understand.  The forgiveness isn’t coming, though.”

“I know.”

“If… if you’ll excuse me, I have a child to return to now.  They’re home alone.”

Asgore smiled.  “I think Frisk can handle that much.  But do go.  And thank you for returning my robe.”  He walked her to the door.

Toriel was about to leave when she froze and turned around.

“Asgore?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Can… can I have the flour sack for the night?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asgore didn't actually kill all of the other humans, although the ones his subjects killed were subsequently turned over to him so he could harvest the souls. He doesn't feel the need to correct Toriel, though, since that's really not the point.


	19. It Gets Real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frisk and Monster Kid enter a battle.

“Yo, I think I finally figured out what we should call our flour baby!”  Monster Kid ran to meet Frisk in the schoolyard.  It was a lovely day for late fall, but for some reason there weren’t that many people milling about outside.  “It took us until the _last_ day to figure it out, so how about Omega?”

Frisk shrugged, the most affirmative response they had given their friend yet.  Monster Kid grinned.

“Awesome!  Here, let’s go put our stuff in our lockers and play hopscotch before school starts!  Race you up the steps!”

Frisk took off, crossing the threshold into the building just a hair before Monster Kid…

…and landing at exactly the same time, after what felt like fifty years of falling.

“Yo!  What… what’s going on here?”  Monster Kid turned pale, their eyes darting around.

The door behind them had sealed up, had been absorbed by the blackness of the wall surrounding it.  Indeed, the entire world was black, yet it was not dark.  There were people, white as the hills of Snowdin, running, jumping, flying, flexing themselves to and fro as they screamed.  Only the bone-white lockers’ positioning told the children that this dungeon, however distorted, was in fact the familiar hallway of Ebottville Secondary School.

“D-do you know what this is?”

Frisk nodded gravely.  They grabbed Monster Kid, pushing them out of the way as a barrage of some kind of paste spewed right towards them. Frisk waited until the source of the projectile had stopped, then made a mad dash for their locker.

They fumbled around until they found the box.  They peeled the lid off.

“A… a cowboy hat?  What good’s that gonna do us?  And a… a heart-shaped locket?  Frisk, I’m confused, I…”

That was when Monster Kid was hit by a blast of the paste and fell over backward, pain coursing through their body.  They felt like their energy was just melting away, drained by the hit.

Quickly, Frisk withdrew a small bag from the box and tore it open. They shoved a handful of its contents into Monster Kid’s mouth.

They felt their energy come back.

“Popato Chisps?” they read from the bag.  “Yo… we’re in a battle, aren’t we?  Like the ones you got into before we came to the surface.  And… Popato Chisps recover your HP?”

Frisk was nodding as they undid the clasp on the heart locket and fastened it around Monster Kid’s neck.  They donned the cowboy hat.

That was when the next blast came for them both.

But this time, it wasn’t so bad.  It hurt a lot, to be certain, maybe even as much as the previous one had, yet it somehow wasn’t unbearable.  Monster Kid stayed on their feet, as though ready to take more.  They felt… safe.

Frisk offered them more chisps, which they gladly accepted.  The two children made their way down the hall, dodging the mysterious white bombs much more effectively than they had before.  Other children were not so fortunate, although fortunately everyone still seemed to be alive.

The next attack didn’t hit them, but it did spray some kind of dust onto Monster Kid’s striped shirt.  For some reason, they could see the residue even though both it and their shirt were white.  Well, white under the circumstances; the shirt had been yellow when Monster Kid had donned it that morning, and for all they knew, maybe the blobs were really green, or yellow, or purple.

Except, no… the powder was white, Monster Kid just knew it.

They dared to survey one of the attackers as Frisk tried to coax it into a position where they could spare it.

“Yo… these things are our _flour sacks!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, the flour sacks don't have souls, but Frisk doesn't know that. They want to err on the side of caution lest they ruin their pacifist run.


	20. Just Like In Your Documentaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undyne enters the ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DEFINITELY play Spear of Justice for this part. It's what I listened to while I wrote it.

Undyne massaged her head, trying to get her bearings.

What could she remember?

She could remember kissing Alphys goodbye, and going for her morning run with Asgore, and stopping at the school when they were done. They had parted ways at the utility shed, so he could get started on the day’s yard work.  She’d gone to the locker room for a quick shower before her duties as gym teacher commenced for the day.  She’d taken a quick peek at the morning exercisers, diligent athletes and hyper students trying to burn off some energy before having to sit still for seven hours, decided they were fine with free run of the gymnasium, and retreated to her office when…

…when…

…that was when everything had gone black… and white.

She blinked.  This was new.

Or rather, it was new to the setting of Ebottville Secondary School.

But considering how even fighting was against school policy, and that even most of the monster children had never seen one day of battle, it was very new indeed.  Who was even around to do battle with?

That was when the screams echoed across the gymnasium, screams that sounded nothing like the ones Alphys had programmed into the flour sacks and everything like the ones produced by Undyne’s kids.

She burst out of her office, sword in hand, just waiting to see action.

It had them.  Three human girls, one Vulkin child, one Migosp, two Tems.  About two dozen other students cowered under the bleachers as they watched a twenty-foot burlap form haphazardly toss around their schoolmates’ unconscious bodies.

“Pretty BAMF, huh?” she prodded the kids as she sliced the creature’s abdomen open.  This prompted the spillage of pounds upon pounds of flour, which coated Undyne like a pastry ready for the fryer.  “Just like in your documentaries!”  She swung the sword again, knocking the faceless head clear off its body.  There was a flash of sparks and the air flooded with the charred, metallic aroma of an electrical fire.

The giant sack collapsed to the floor.  It did not turn to dust, but the life had clearly gone out of it, the way the body of that one human Undyne had had to kill had stuck around even when its soul was safely sealed in Asgore’s jar.  The beast was dead.

So why wasn’t the battle over?

The creature’s hostages regained consciousness, while the rest of the students gingerly slithered out of their hiding places.  They were all too shocked to utter a word, and as silence fell over the gym, a fiercer wailing reverberated across the rest of the school, a series of screams that were quite identical to those that had escaped Undyne’s students’ own lips a mere two minutes prior.

Undyne motioned for her students to stay where they were while she left to investigate.

Out in the corridor, about two dozen more flour sacks were scurrying to and fro and terrorizing the student body.  Most of the others had not grown to the massive height of the one in the gym, but they were certainly modified beyond the plain brown bags Undyne had distributed.  Some were flying, some were disassembling and reassembling themselves on a whim, some were shrieking loudly enough to shatter glass.

Every single one had become an abomination.

Undyne threw spears at all the flour sacks in her line of vision, but she knew there must be many more if the screams were echoing all over the school.  She had enough spears to equip an entire class several times over; ammunition was not the problem.  The problem was the hundreds of sacks running in more directions than Undyne could possibly be at once.

She retreated to the gymnasium and slammed the door behind her.

“Alrighty, listen up, you brats!” she called, as if she were just about to explain the rules of floor hockey or volleyball.  “I know I’m awesome and could bench-press seven of you—”  She gestured to the kids she had just rescued.  “—but this is an all-hands-on-deck situation.”

She yanked a sound-absorbing mat off the wall, revealing her spear collection.

“Catch!” she called as she tossed a handful to the student on her far right, who ran away reflexively.  She shook her head.  “You forgot to catch!  Do I have to explain this any more clearly?  I’m not your freaking kindergarten teacher!”  She threw the rest of the spears to the remaining children, who attempted to suppress the instinct to flee with varying levels of success.

When she was satisfied that all her students were properly equipped, she threw open the door to the gym and ushered them out.

“I _knew_ what I taught you in advanced spear-throwing would come in handy!  SUCK IT, HELEN RICHARDSON!!!!!!”


	21. All Your Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphys gets to work evacuating everyone.

“Dr. Alphys?  DOCTOR ALPHYS, HELP!!!”

Alphys pried a toppled trophy case off of a student, with what strength she could not say.  “C-can you walk?  Or-or running would b-b-be better…”

The child, a human freshman, nodded.  “Thanks, Dr. Alphys!”

“D-don’t thank m-me yet.  Y-you st-st-still have to get to the l-l-library.”

The student scrunched their face.  “Why the library?”

“B-because it’s the one p-p-part of the sch-school wh-where the… where the flour sacks c-c-can’t go,” Alphys explained.  “I… I wrote it into their code.  S-so they w-wouldn’t d-d-disturb people who… who were st-studying.  The sacks will de… deactivate if they try to infiltrate the library.  So it’s the one safe place to evacuate to.”  The student stayed planted in the spot where they had been pinned, dumbfounded.  “Th-that means you have to GO THERE! NOW!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll get there after I’ve evacuated everyone else.  HURRY!”

The student skittered down the hallway, dodging a floury projectile from the nearest sack.

Alphys ran the other way, into the computer lab, where one boy attempted to extract another boy from under a desk.

“Come _on_ , Evan, move your butt!  We’re sitting ducks in here!”  Jayden Richardson yanked on Evan’s hand, to no avail.

“I’m screwed either way if Undyne finds out what we did!”

“Undyne?  You’re seriously worried about what she’ll say?  I’d worry more about—”  Jayden jumped in alarm as he realized who had just entered.  “ _Alphys_!”

“Are… are you kids all right?  Do… do you n-n-need me to escort you to safety?”

Jayden groaned.  “I dunno, _do_ we, Evan?”

Evan shook his head emphatically, then voluntarily emerged from his cover.  “We don’t need anything from you at all!  You hot-wired those stupid flour babies to attack us just so you could get rid of us and—”

Jayden rolled his eyes.  “That’s BS and you know it, man!  Just tell her what you did and maybe she can fix it!”

“F-fix wh-wh-what?”

Evan looked ready to retreat once more to his hiding spot, but Jayden looked Alphys in the eye and confessed, “We re-programmed the babies, all right?  We got sick of them screaming all the time, so Evan broke into your laptop and stole some stuff.”

Dread pricked at Alphys’ scales.  “Wh-wh-what _kind_ of ‘stuff’?”

Jayden sighed.  “That code from the robot teacher.”

Alphys choked on her own saliva.  “Holy _crap_!”

“We thought if we just changed a few things, the flour sacks would leave us alone.  But we were wrong!”

Evan crossed his arms.  “We were not!  It was working fine until this morning!”

Alphys grabbed the student and shook him.  “It is _not_ fine at-at all!  M-mettaton isn’t l-like any ro-ro-robot, he’s a p-p-person t-too!  And… and when you’re wr-writing code w-with in-invigorating m-m-magic, you have to have a s-soul for it to inter… interface with!  O-otherwise you get… you get things like _this_!”

“Well how were we supposed to know that?”

“We _weren’t_ , stupid, I told you this was a dumb idea!” Jayden grabbed Evan’s arm and dragged him out of Alphys’ grasp.

“J-just g-g-get to the l-l-library!  I’ve got t-to s-s-see if anyone else n-needs my h-h-help!”

Jayden nodded, then frowned suspiciously.  “Hey Dr. Al, why are you here now anyway?  We don’t have MATCH today.”

“I h-had to evacuate the hallways.  It’s… it’s funny, I feel like I’ve done it all before, s-s-somehow.”

“But how did you even know this was going on?”

Alphys pulled out her phone and opened her most recent text message:

“ _Hey bb the flour sacks turned n2 killer robots & i have 2 throw spears @ them.  _ _Bet they close school & i get 2 go home early.  Have the lab ready. ;) <3 Undyne_”

"I... I have m-my sources..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Undyne still uses text shorthand from 10 years ago. Sue me.


	22. Safety and Soundness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toriel makes sure every last one of her students is out of harm's way. She receives some unexpected help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, it's a good thing none of the students took Toriel up on her deal here...

“But Principal Toriel… I gotta go!”

“I told you once, I told you a million times, and I’ll tell you again… if you want to exit the library, you must go through me!  Prove to me you are strong enough to survive!”  Toriel twirled a fireball in one paw, intimidating the human boy who had been begging for release.  The library held approximately one third of the student body by this point, and more kept arriving, either voluntarily or at the insistence of Alphys.

“D-did you r-r-reach the other st-students?  The b-b-bus d-drivers?” Alphys asked the principal as she dropped off a sobbing seventh-grader who was too scared to move.

Toriel nodded and patted her cell-phone pocket.  “It is to be hoped that the cancellation of school will keep the remainder of the children safely away.  I should like to lock the entrances as well, but were we able to find them, we should be free to exit this battle, and that is not the case.”

“W-well, it c-c-can’t last for-forever,” Alphys assured Toriel.  “S-s-sooner or l-later, the flour sacks will run out of… of energy, I’m sure. Ex… except there is abundant food available in the students’ l-lockers, I su-su-suppose.”  Alphys swallowed.  “If I c-could have the remains of one defeated sack, per-perhaps I could find some sort of corruption in the code that would allow me to… to shut them all down at… at once?”

Toriel nodded.  “Do what you must, Doctor.  Miss Undyne and some of her better-trained pupils are as we speak neutralizing some of the threat.”

Alphys turned pale. “Y-y-you mean there’s… there’s still kids out there?”

“Believe me, I wish they were securely in here.  But Miss Undyne’s confidence in her spears overruled any voice of reason.”

Alphys smiled. “I-I believe that very much.  B-b-but so long as they’re with her, they’re… they’re in good hands.”

A knock came at the library door.

Alphys thrust it open the second she verified it was Undyne.  “Brought you a few more refugees,” the fish explained, guiding a trembling Whimsun into the room.

The Whimsun burst into tears.  “They’re… they’re gonna get Mandy!  And Vicky and Amy and Tyson and—”

“Woah, woah, wait.  You mean those human kids from Bus 11?  I thought you told all the drivers to cancel their routes!” Undyne accused Toriel.

“I _did_!” Fear pricked at the principal’s skin.  “But they had a substitute today.  Johnson said he’d notify his replacement.”

“Well, who was it?”

“All he said was that it didn’t really matter if they were a man or a woman.  They used to operate a ferry.”  Toriel jumped back as the irrelevance of the person’s former occupation struck her. “Dam—darn—no, _dammit_! There’s an entire busload of human children in the halls with no idea what’s going on because everyone who’s not throwing spears is hunkered down here with the rest of us!”

“I saw them!” Whimsun cried.  “The evil flour sacks did too.  I… they were headed right for… they were all headed for… right for… I can’t handle this!”

“T-toriel…” Alphys warned gently.

“No.”

“I’ll go, we’ll all go, but if the sacks have decided to gang up on them, they might already be—”

“I said _no_!” Toriel insisted, and she threw open the door, fireballs burning in her mitts, striding briskly and heroically right into—

A very weak, tattered Asgore with twenty or so kids in tow.

“Tori, I… here…” he panted.

“Mandy!” Whimsun cried out hopefully from inside the library.  A brunette girl with pigtails darted out from behind Asgore and ran to join her friend.

“These aren’t all of them,” Asgore explained.  “They… they had two of them cornered. The children managed to find coverage, but who knows how long their shelter will hold.  I just needed… to get the rest… to safety… before…”  Asgore shook violently and did not finish the sentence. “I must return.”

“You must not!  My children, go to the library!  That’s an order!”

The children did as ordered.

“Tori, the others are in danger!”

“I’ll rescue them myself, thankyouverymuch. I can handle it.  Now be a good king and go up… er, back in the library.”  Her fireballs glowed white-hot.  “Keep an eye on the other children!”

Asgore nodded grimly.  He winced in pain and limped as he complied.

Toriel blushed.  “Don’t make too big a thing out of this,” she told her former husband as she reached into her pocket and withdrew a slice of snail pie.  “And I promise there are no buttercups in this one.”


	23. Flower V. Flour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Great Papyrus (and his surrogate son!) to the rescue!

“I thought there was no driver’s ed today,” Flowey reminded Papyrus as they ascended the stairs of Ebottville Secondary.

“No, but it’s high time we got to the library!  As your father, I must provide you with well-rounded reading material.  As much as we’ve loved _Peek-a-Boo with Fluffy Bunny_.”

“Yeah, that ending was… how was that a book for kids?!?” Flowey inquired as they entered the building.

As it had for everyone else that day, the world fell black and white.

“Hi Papyrus!” Undyne exclaimed as she ran past with six or seven flour sacks skewered onto her sword like the world’s blandest shish kabob.  “Bye Papyrus!  We’ll find a use for all this flour at your next cooking lesson, sound good?!!” she hollered over her shoulder.

Her nervous entourage of students, about a class’s worth, tried to keep up with her without slipping on any of defeated (“dead”?) sacks around them.  Amongst the throng, they had maybe three or four carcasses of their own.

A flock of flour babies, floating as though possessed, darted towards the children.  Spewing white puffs at the kids’ faces, the began to circle like vultures, their eyes flashing a rare shock of red light against the white forms of everything else.

“Fear not, human youngsters!”  Instantly, the sacks turned blue and fell flat on the floor, their every effort to lift themselves ultimately proving futile.  “The Great Papyrus has your back!”  Papyrus dashed around the circle, pinning the sacks with barrages of bones and allowing the kids to escape.

Undyne turned and darted back towards her students.  Behind her, the remains of a very large two-headed flour behemoth blocked the end of the hallway.  “All right, ya wimps, this corridor’s clear. Go back and cower in the library if you’re still scared!” Only about three people took her up on this suggestion.

That was when five flour babies crashed through the wall in the driver’s ed car, armed with rockets aimed directly at the students.

Papyrus dove in front of them, absorbing every hit.

“You idiot!” Flowey screamed.  If he had had blood, it would be boiling by now.  He turned to the new flour sacks.  “Listen up!  I’ve got some friendliness pellets headed your way!”

The sacks dodged every single one.

“Figures,” Flowey muttered.

“That’s okay, my boy,” Papyrus assured him weakly.  “You did give it your best, after all.”

His best?

That lame trick?

If only Papyrus had seen what Flowey was _really_ capable of.

But no.

He didn’t dare.

Did he?

The flour sacks kept coming, Papyrus was down, and even Undyne was beginning to show signs of weariness.  Try as she might, she couldn’t go on forever, despite the rare level of determination Flowey remembered from holding her soul.

If Flowey did nothing, the children were doomed to die.

If he did what he knew he could, the children _might_ die.

“Let’s see if I remember how to do this,” Flowey said as he inhaled.  “Hey guys, can I borrow your souls?”

The human kids screamed.

“Relax, I’ll give them back when I’m done,” he assured them.

At first, the kids fell utterly silent and still, a peculiar juxtaposition with the melee that had ensued between the car’s occupants and Undyne.

Of course, nobody was going to volunteer—

One girl stared at him in the face before stepping forward.

Five other kids joined her, one by one.

“It’ll have to do,” Flowey decided, and the world flashed bright red before a mass of lead pipes and green tentacles enveloped the entire school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They say when you aren't sure what to write next, have a team of ninjas come crashing through the wall. Can flour sacks be ninjas?  
> Also, I really don't wanna see what the insurance rates are like on that car. :P


	24. Green Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When all hope seems lost, an unexpected hero steps up to the plate.

Nobody, save for Frisk themself, had ever seen anything like it.

Half of the students who were there that day, monster and human alike, watched from the library window, unable to move a muscle.  The other half cowered on the floor, trembling and crying.

The flour sacks were still out and about as they had been, but they weren’t raising hell and tearing the hallways apart.

An enormous green _thing_ was raising hell and tearing the hallways apart instead.

There were flashes.

And alarms.

“Principal Toriel!  Are we all gonna die?” a young Vulkin sniffed.

And Principal Toriel couldn’t answer, because she couldn’t guarantee that the answer was no.

But as she watched the wrathful creature work its thorny arms down the hallway, as it struck some subconscious, painful memory, she also felt something else, something positive.  It should have been relief, as she realized that the leviathan was attacking the flour sacks, not the students, but there was something else, something deeper than that.

Something almost like _affection_ , that wanted to put the creature to bed and knit it sweaters and bake it a pie.

She shook her head at the nonsensical notion.  She concentrated instead on its victories over the flour terrorists.

The students noticed the creature’s pattern as well, and slowly their screams turned to cheers.

“GET ’IM!  GET ’IM!”

“THERE’S ONE COMING UP ON YOUR LEFT!”

“GO FOR THE ONE IN THE DRINKING FOUNTAIN!”

“FLOUR SACKS SUCK!”

“I ALWAYS HATED THEIR WHOLE WHEAT GUTS!”

“DESTROY THEM, GREEN THING!”

“GREEN THING!  GREEN THING!  GREEN THING!”

Toriel tolerated their cheering, but questioned whether it was wise.  She sincerely hoped whatever the green thing was wasn’t just planning on saving the students for last.

And then they were gone, every last animated sack in the building.  Just like that, there was peace, and the creature panted but did not retreat to wherever it had come from.  The dust, er, flour settled, and the world turned back into its full-color reality.

“Can we leave the library now?” a Snowdrake asked hopefully.

Toriel paused.  “My child, I think—”

She was interrupted just then by a loud, low rumbling that seemed to originate deep within the earth.

A crack opened up along the corridor outside the library, and the building split apart along the crevice.  Air whooshed into the newly created space as papers and pencils were carried in with it.

An angry voice like thunder bellowed, “FAILURES!  YOU’RE FIRED!!!”

And there rose from the crack the biggest flour sack of them all, at least thirty times the size of the one Undyne had brought down in the gymnasium.

The wind picked up, and recalled all the burlap and stuffing strewn across the hallway, maybe even every last bit of flour sack in the school.  It all flew back to the being that had emerged, making it even larger.

Reflexively, the green thing attacked it at full force, directing every last thorn in its body toward the creature from below, sending impulse waves through the floor.

The creature from below only laughed.

“FUTILE. FUTILE!   **FUTILE**!!!” it roared as it sent jets of flour back toward the green thing, which shrank back in response.  “LIKE MY COUSIN BEFORE ME, I HAVE BECOME CORPOREAL WITH THE HELP OF TECHNOLOGY!  BUT YOU STILL CANNOT REACH MY SOUL!  A MODIFICATION IN MY ROBOTIC CODE LEAVES ME WITH A DEFENSE SUPERIOR TO METTATON’S!  ONLY ONE OF MY ORIGINAL FORM CAN—”

That was when a familiar face faded into the middle of the hall.

“I suppose it was only a matter of time before my students all decided to ditch me at once.  I guess it’s time to hand Principal Toriel my resignation…”  Napstablook looked around at the scene that had unfolded around the unidentifiable creatures.  “Oh my.”

“You’re a ghost, idiot!” the green thing yelled; the students were surprised to learn it was verbal.  “Get rid of it already!”

Napstablook blinked.  “How?  I’ve never really been good in battle.  It’s just as well; I’ve never really been good at anything.  And now the school is in shambles and I can’t fix it.”

They floated upwards and began to cry.  And cry.

“I’m sorry, cousin.  I shouldn’t have bothered you,” they told the mad creature that had emerged from below, shedding more and more tears the more they talked.  “I’m sorry if I’m the reason you left your ghostly form behind.”  More weeping.  “I guess I just mess everything up like that.  I’ll go away now—”

But as the tears hit the creature’s body, it winced in pain, more and more with each drop.

“Acid rain, again?!?”  The foreboding deep voice was gone.  The creature now seemed incredibly irritated.  “Oh, FORGET IT!  I’m outta here!”

And just like that, the creature collapsed back into the abyss, leaving a mushroom cloud of flour in its wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask me what Mad Dummy plans to do with his new corporeal form now that he's given up attacking the school. He needs to find a living.


	25. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for cleanup.

“And you can assure me that there is no danger of the… Mad Dummy, I think the students called it?… resurfacing and terrorizing the school once more?”

Alphys nodded.  “Sh-should he change his mind about… about possessing the flour sacks, i-it won’t allow him a form any more p-p-powerful th-than the mannequin he took previously.  Wh-when I p-programmed the sacks, I p-p-put an expiration date on their magical f-functions, s-s-so Undyne w-wouldn’t need to wo-worry about whether every s-single one was de-deactivat-ated at the end of the… at the end of the assignment.”

“And none of that would have changed with the modifications by… _certain_ students?” Toriel cast a stern glare at Jayden Richardson and Evan Stein, who were awaiting their sentence on the bench outside of the remains of Toriel’s office.  The former gripped the latter’s arm tightly so as not to allow him to flee.

“N-no, p-principal Toriel. A-all th-th-that happened w-was th-that they installed an experimental version of the p-p-program that I… that I used to allow Mettaton c-c-corporeal at-at-attachment t-to the ro-robotic f-f-form that I designed f-for him.”  Alphys blushed.  “I-I wanted to see if… if I c-could give him the strengths of a solid being yet the weaknesses of a… of a g-g-ghost.”

“Aw, thanks babe, I appreciate the thought, but trust me, you can’t improve on perfection!”  Mettaton posed gracefully for a second before turning back to his phone.  “Blooky, I gotta tell ya, you really came through!  My viewers are eating you up!”

He showed the phone to Napstablook, who was standing shyly behind a smashed trophy case. “Did you post the video already?”

“Hell yeah!  Everyone loves an underdog hero.  Those who don’t think I Photoshopped you in, anyway.”  Mettaton put the phone away.  “I bet at the next school dance, we’ll have nutjobs trying to sneak in for a look at the DJ. But I must ask, off-camera, how did you not notice the calamity in the hallways and address it sooner?”

Napstablook smiled a tiny smile.  “None of the sacks entered the music room, and… I had my headphones in.”

Toriel nodded, content.

“That takes care of one creature.  It still doesn’t explain what the green thing is doing—”

But the green thing wasn’t doing anything, because it had ceased to be.  The thorny tentacles had kindly withdrawn from the hallways on their own, leaving the only bit of greenery anywhere in the corridor as…

“Flowey.”  Toriel said the name flatly, but didn’t approach him.  He was, after all, at the other end of the hall, surrounded by a throng of eight exhausted-looking children.

Wait a moment.

Two of those children in particular looked familiar.

Toriel blinked.

No, wait, six.

Six exhausted children.

And not one face stood out.

Toriel sighed and kicked at a bit of broken tile.  At least none of the student body had been more seriously injured than this lot, and they were clearly going to recover.  Indeed, triumphant smiles adorned their faces, as though they were proud to be standing next to Flowey.  It made no sense, but it was a relief all the same.

A gentle hand rested on her shoulder, and although Toriel did not turn around, she knew the presence.

“I expect I’ll be needing your services as more than a hedge-trimmer for a while,” she told Asgore, recalling how, for a king with better things to do than fix leaks or replace doorknobs, he had always been handy around the house.

Although admittedly, the house had never had a dusting of flour on every surface, the contents of hundreds of lockers dumped out on the floor, or a fifty-foot-long chasm dividing the building down the middle.

“That may well be, but don’t discount the efforts of your pupils.  They’ve already commenced reparations.”  And sure enough, many hands were already making light work of the debris.  Frisk and Monster Kid were picking up needles that the green thing had shed, and a few Woshua seemed especially cheery at the prospect of scrubbing away the floury residue.

“That’s right!  You clear that rubble, you hear me?  We’re gonna build a new school that’s bigger, better, and badder than the old one!  We’re gonna be the _best_ school!” Undyne yelled as she chased a few human boys with a mop.  “And you punks are gonna learn responsibility, even if the flour sack assignment turned out to be—”

“A ‘bust’?” Sans inquired to Toriel’s left.

“Sans!  Get back here, you lazybones!  I know you know how to fix this broken window!” Papyrus demanded from the other side of the crack.  “The Great Papyrus has far more pressing matters to attend to!”  He looked sideways at the totaled driver’s ed car.

“Easy there, he just left to ‘powder’ his nose!” Toriel called back, eliciting a yodel of exasperation from Papyrus as he threw his arms into the air.

“You’ll have to hire a few contractors, but I suspect you’ll have Ebottville Secondary back in shape very soon,” Asgore assured his ex-wife.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Toriel replied.  As far as world-ending apocalypses were concerned, she had seen far worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even Omega Flowey is redeemable. That's why I love Undertale.


	26. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undyne ponders the final grades.

Undyne clicked her red pen rapidly, the grading rubric sitting empty in front of her.

Without the flour sacks having been returned to her, judging the project based on their condition was impossible.  Part of her was tempted to just give everyone B minuses and be done with it, but that wouldn’t be fair to the minority of students who had resisted the allure of Evan Stein’s ill-fated hack, and far be it from Undyne to commit an act of injustice. She could cancel the entire project, but that might elicit resentment from the fellow teachers and staff who had put up with so much over the past week, to think it was all for naught.  She could give the honest kids As and flunk everyone else, but then she’d have to deal with the bombardment of complaints from the kind of parents who stuck honor roll bumper stickers on their cars.

Then again, if her grading kept those kids off the honor roll, could she rightfully peel those stupid stickers off at the next PTA meeting?

Someone knocked at the door to her office.

“Enter if you dare!” Undyne responded.

It was Alphys, carting in the few flour babies that had survived and been returned to Undyne that morning.  Just to be sure, the scientist had spent the afternoon deactivating them manually so as not to allow another infestation.  “I-I’m done,” she told her girlfriend. “D-do y-y-you want me to put them away somewhere, or dispose of them?”

“Eh, you can throw them out.”

“Even Dokusonmaru?”

“Yeah, even our darling.  It was cool at first, but now keeping it around feels kind of creepy.”

Alphys smiled.  “I-I th-th-think I m-might miss it, though,” she admitted.  “I k-k-kind of l-liked being m-moms.”

“Well, after I’m through grading this mess we can talk about getting a cat.  We can even give it the same name.  I’m sure Gloria won’t mind.”

“H-how are you go-going t-to grade the… mess?” Alphys inquired.  “For the st-students who… who don’t have anything to-to turn in, I mean.”

“I’m thinking mabes I’ll just give them a make-up assignment.  Like writing a ten-thousand-word essay or running two hundred laps around the gym or building robots that can fix everything that’s still broken.”  Undyne pointed at the claw marks in the door—the ones she hadn’t placed there herself, that is.

Alphys blushed.  “D-don’t do that,” she pleaded.  “I-in fact, I… I don’t th-think we should do MATCH anymore.  Or-or that I should have a l-lab anymore.”

Undyne dropped her pen.  “Wait, seriously?” she asked.  This was new.

“I m-made this m-mess, Undyne, I—”  Alphys swallowed.  “N-nobody d-d-died, but… but p-p-p-people g-got hurt.  Again.  Be-because of s-s-something I in-invented.”  She wrapped her tail protectively around her body.

Undyne stood up and walked around the desk to Alphys.  She put one arm around the lizard, but made a fist and flexed the other.  “You mean,  because one of your inventions worked?”

“Well, I—”

“You mean because you’ve got your own powers that are stronger than this rinky-dink building?  Because your passion for innovation taught the kids a valuable lesson this week?”

Alphys swallowed and looked down.

Undyne gently lifted her chin.  “Hey Al, look, I know how you feel about this.  I know how you felt about Flowey, and the amalgamates, and probably a bunch of other stuff you never told me about.  But it’s _okay_. The new version of Mettaton’s code wasn’t dangerous until someone stole it and used it wrong.  Thanks to your determination experiments, many monsters thought incurable have been given a second shot at life, albeit a pretty different one from the one they knew before.  And as much as everyone kind of hates Flowey, he’s still pretty damn important.  He’s the reason we’re not stuck underground anymore, the reason we’re free.  And you’re the reason for him.”

Alphys leaned into Undyne’s embrace.

“I’ve thrown some spears that landed in places that I wish they hadn’t,” Undyne confessed.  “But I keep throwing, because I’m a passionate spear-thrower and I’m awesome at it.  You should keep inventing, and teaching kids to invent, because you’re a passionate inventor and you’re awesome at it.”

Alphys shuddered in simultaneous disbelief and appreciation.  “E-even if-if my next ex… experiment de-destroys our house?”

Undyne smirked.  “You mean ‘experiment’ as in a robot, or ‘experiment’ as in a kid?”  When Alphys sputtered, Undyne assured her, “It’s all right.  We can discuss the kid later.  For now, all I’m saying is that everything you do, everything you make, even if it has some bad fallout… there’s still good in it, all right?  Something that makes it all worthwhile.”

Alphys frowned.  “But where was the good in yesterday’s fiasco?”

Undyne grinned widely.  “Well for starters, Helen Richardson has decided to homeschool…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Y'all are gorgeous!


End file.
